


my lips have the sin

by hoosierbitch



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Healing, M/M, Multi, Mutism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Prison, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:04:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I thought this story was going to be a couple of comments long when I started it on the first round of <a href="http://collarkink.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://collarkink.livejournal.com/"><b>collarkink</b></a> (first thread <a href="http://collarkink.livejournal.com/516.html?thread=633604#t633604">here</a>, second thread <a href="http://collarkink.livejournal.com/1404.html?thread=2785916#t2785916">here</a>). That was 29,000 words and 20 months ago. I wouldn’t have finished this journey without a lot of help from some amazing women. Thank you <a href="http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/"><b>rabidchild67</b></a> for betaing, brainstorming, and falling in love with Brad. <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/"><b>elrhiarhodan</b></a>—when I started writing this, I could barely spell your username. You gave me the laptop I used to write the middle portion of the story, welcomed me into your house for the weekend where I finished it, and then betad the whole damn thing. And last but not least, <a href="http://photoash.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://photoash.livejournal.com/"></a><b>photoash</b>, who was simultaneously first reader, cheerleader, asskicker, researcher, midwife, and handholder. I wouldn’t have gotten here without you. And finally, thank you to everyone who read this in all of its fits and starts at the meme. Your feedback and encouragement meant (and means) so much to me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this story was going to be a couple of comments long when I started it on the first round of [](http://collarkink.livejournal.com/profile)[**collarkink**](http://collarkink.livejournal.com/) (first thread [here](http://collarkink.livejournal.com/516.html?thread=633604#t633604), second thread [here](http://collarkink.livejournal.com/1404.html?thread=2785916#t2785916)). That was 29,000 words and 20 months ago. I wouldn’t have finished this journey without a lot of help from some amazing women. Thank you [](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rabidchild67**](http://rabidchild67.livejournal.com/) for betaing, brainstorming, and falling in love with Brad. [](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/profile)[**elrhiarhodan**](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/)—when I started writing this, I could barely spell your username. You gave me the laptop I used to write the middle portion of the story, welcomed me into your house for the weekend where I finished it, and then betad the whole damn thing. And last but not least, [](http://photoash.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://photoash.livejournal.com/)**photoash** , who was simultaneously first reader, cheerleader, asskicker, researcher, midwife, and handholder. I wouldn’t have gotten here without you. And finally, thank you to everyone who read this in all of its fits and starts at the meme. Your feedback and encouragement meant (and means) so much to me.

Peter said he was sorry. He took the tracker off one last time and then stayed on his knees, bent down before Neal like he was expecting to be knighted. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Peter said, and because Neal had learned that Peter’s words could become law he wasted a second wishing that it was a joke, maybe it could be a prank gone too far and any second now Peter would reattach the anklet and Neal would laugh and help him stand up and they’d drive home together, maybe pick up dinner on their way, call Elizabeth and see what she’d like for dessert—

"Get up, Peter. You’re going to hurt your knees."

Peter stood and held the anklet awkwardly in front of him like an offering, a gift, an apology. As if the guards weren’t going to search Neal and take everything away from him as soon as Peter left the room. "I’ll get you out," Peter promised, and Neal tried to smile and say _thank you_ , or _I believe you_ , or _Peter please don’t leave me here, Peter, Peter, Peter._

Instead he nodded and stayed absolutely still while Peter brought him in for a tight hug that stole the air from his lungs and the resolve from his mind ( _Peter, Peter, please_ ). Then Peter turned, anklet dangling from his hand, and left Neal alone.

This wasn’t Neal’s first time in prison. He had a lot of memories and a strong imagination. He thought that he knew what was in store for him, thought that he could handle it.

He let Peter go and held his pleas behind clenched teeth.

When the first inmate sidled up behind him and whispered _snitch_ into his ear, he realized that this was going to be so much worse than he ever could have imagined.

*

The first year was by far the worst. In the first year, Peter and Elizabeth and June and Moz visited him every week. Peter would tell him about the appeals he’d filed, Elizabeth would complain about her business with a big fake smile plastered on her face, June would tell him stories about Byron, Moz would say nothing at all.

He tried to bribe the other inmates not to bruise him where it’d show. He didn’t want the others—his friends, coworkers, family, Peter—to worry.

His first time in prison, they hadn’t let him out in the yard. They’d limited his activity time, watched him like a hawk during work hours, brought him his meals so he wouldn’t somehow escape from the mess. Apparently this time around they thought he’d been rehabilitated, declawed; that he was no longer a threat. Not a flight risk. And so they left him to fend for himself.

They got him his first day outside. He’d been sticking to the perimeter of the fence, hoping to avoid notice, and they grabbed him when he was strolling past the bleachers. One of them kicked his legs out from under him; another knocked his head against a metal support. His vision blurred. He could feel blood trickling down through his hair and thought _at least the bruise will be hidden_.

They pressed his face into the ground and the smell of dirt and grass and cigarette butts overwhelmed him.

They were careful with the uniform ( _they’d had practice_ ). They took turns with him. Mike was the biggest, so he had to go last. Nelson’s was smallest. They laughed at him, teased him, it burned like acid when the first one spit on Neal’s hole and shoved in. Damon was second. It was a smoother entry, the second time. Neal tried to catalog the facts and sensations, said to himself: _this, you can bear. This, you can live with later. It is easier to push out than to tighten, easier to breathe through your nose than your mouth so you smell earth instead of semen, easier to concentrate on the sensations than to listen to them talk._

"You like being used, boy? You like it when the FBI used you? I bet you did. I bet you’re having second thoughts now, though!" They laughed again, they all laughed. "FBI’s little bitch boy, right here on my cock. I feel honored."

At least they were quick about it. Maybe twenty minutes and he was left alone, half-naked under the sun and god and anyone else who cared to glance over. Twenty-two minutes and he finished jerking himself off because he had a prostate and they’d hit it, they’d rubbed his dick against the ground and he’d responded. He didn’t have to convince himself he didn’t want it, it wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t a whore. ( _Not that time. Not yet_.)

After his first gangbang he got better at staying under the guards’ eyes. Then the other prisoners got better at distracting them. He was passed around like a party favor, a toy, a blow-up doll, a convenient set of holes. Fucked until he bled, passed out, came, believed what they were saying about him.

After the first year he realized Peter wasn’t going to be able to save him, took everyone off his approved visitor list, and set about saving himself.

*

Hector was a family man. He showed Neal pictures of his family; his two daughters, his son who’d passed away in a car accident, his parents ( _God bless them and keep them_ ), his wife. Hector had been in charge of the largest drug-running operation in New England before his brother turned him in.

"You stay with me, _querido_ , I’ll take care of you."

Neal had stopped talking months earlier, so he just nodded and took the hand Hector was offering him. Hector pulled him up from the floor easily, like he weighed nothing. Hector was a big man, and Neal hadn’t been eating well. Hector took him to the infirmary, waited patiently while the RN looked him over, and waited two weeks before he even touched Neal. It was the longest Neal had gone without contact for eleven months and when Hector finally kissed him, caressed him, fucked him, Neal was grateful for it.

Life was...simpler, with Hector. Hector would talk about his family (Neal was slowly learning Spanish), his business, what he was planning to do after his release. " _Pero_ , you’re here forever, _si_?" Neal _hmmd_ and leaned against him. "Poor little bird, _pobrecita_ , trapped in her little cage."

They played endless games of blackjack. Hector had paid handsomely for the biggest double-cell on the block, and they drank crappy alcohol while Hector laughed and tried to figure out how Neal was cheating, laughed and call him by his wife’s nicknames, laughed and never once tried to get him to talk.

Hector didn’t make love to him often. He wanted blowjobs most mornings and nights, but he only fucked him on visiting days. He did it missionary style, he’d call Neal Maria, kiss his neck, he’d be gentle. "Gonna get you pregnant again, _mi amor_ , fill you up inside— _unh_ —"

He didn’t touch Neal’s cock himself (it would have ruined the illusion), but he let him jerk off, let him come.

He overdosed in June, and Neal saw his family when they came in to claim the body. His daughters were beautiful. His wife looked nothing like Neal.

After Hector there was Tom, and then Nelson (who’d been the first one to fuck him, over two years earlier), then Francois. Francois who Neal thought maybe he could have fallen in love with, if they’d met at a different time, before—before.

Francois was tall and strong, with a laugh that made the other inmates groan, it bounced through the halls and into their cells ( _he’d laugh while Neal rode him, laugh and kiss him and run his hands through Neal’s hair which had grown so much longer_ ). He wasn’t French, didn’t speak a word of it, but Neal could imagine them in France. Walking down the Champs hand in hand, Francois with his tan and sun-bleached hair, white teeth gleaming in one of his huge grins. Or in Provence, in one of the hostels Neal had stayed in with Alex, living like poor art students and eating pastries in bed.

Francois didn’t know who Neal was or why he was in prison, and he spent the time they weren’t fucking making up elaborate back stories for him. "I think you murdered your whole family," he guessed the first night. "You’ve got a crazy clever look about you, Neal. I bet you did it real weird, too. With—with kitchen appliances. Because you were a chef. Were you a chef, sweetie?"

Neal shook his head but gave Francois a small grin, which made him laugh ( _it boomed, echoed, was too loud, surrounded him_ ). "You’re gorgeous when you smile, baby. You don’t have to, or nothing," Francois said when it faded. "But it sure makes you look—real pretty, Neal. Real, real pretty."

Francois was gay. He had a boyfriend on the outside, a string of other lovers behind him, and he knew how to make Neal come, moan, cry. The first time Francois rimmed him Neal orgasmed before he even knew what was happening. Francois didn’t just touch him in the yard, didn’t have Neal hold onto his belt loop or pocket, he kept his arm wrapped around Neal at all times. Like they were dating, like they were partners, like he cared.

Francois was in jail for fraud. He’d robbed thousands of people of their life savings. Didn’t have that much pull on the inside, but he was built like a _beast_ ; no one wanted to challenge him. Francois had been sentenced months after Neal had gone back inside. He wondered if it might have been his team—Peter’s team—who caught him.

Most of the time Neal tried not to think about the bonds he’d forged. He’d stolen $500,000 dollars from a corporation worth billions. And for that he would be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Peter’s deal hadn’t been worth it. Neal should have served the four years he’d forfeited for Kate, should have told Peter his deal wasn’t good enough, shouldn’t have chased the man he’d thought was their mark past his two-mile tether.

By the end of his third year, Francois’ impossible stories filled his head. At first they were all about Neal’s mysterious past—had he been a family-killing chef, or a trainer at Sea World who’d violated the dolphins, maybe a schizophrenic tranny with a shoe fetish, a crazed stalker of Hall & Oates who’d taken his obsession one tragic step too far?—but then the stories started to change.

When Francois began to tell stories about the future, Neal did his best to nod and smile. "We’re going to be big stars on Broadway, Neal," Francois said, and Neal smiled and pushed back harder, getting the final inch of Francois’ cock at just the right angle. "Going to get a house—and an electric car—and you can cook, or paint, or sing—"

Neal thought about the Burkes’ house, about the dreams he and Moz and Kate had shared, and tried to say _I’m in here for good, I’m in here forever_ but somewhere along the line the silence had gone from a choice, a habit, a shield, into something else. Somewhere along the line he’d lost his voice. He’d lost so many things before that he didn’t regret its absence until he tried to say _I’m no good, I’m trapped, I’m a bird in a cage_ , querida, _Francois, stop talking_.

He had hickeys on his neck, a well-fucked ache in his ass, and the unbalanced feeling of Francois not standing at his side when Peter Burke filed one final, successful appeal, and got him out.

*

Peter knew Neal.

If there was one thing that had remained constant through the eight years they’d known each other, it was that Peter knew _everything_ about Neal. He knew Neal’s shoe size ( _11_ ), favorite brand of toothpaste ( _apricot tartar control_ ), what he liked ( _beautiful women, money, Kate, Peter_ ), what he needed.

The Neal that the guards brought him after he showed them his paperwork wasn’t the same man. Yes, his hair was longer and he was thinner, he _looked_ different, but Peter had braced himself for that. It was the _spark_ of Neal Caffrey—the magic that had made him seem as though he was always just a second away from either picking your pocket or kissing you, the magic that let you know that either choice would be an adventure—it simply wasn’t there anymore.

 _Maybe there’s a mistake_ , he thought, even though he knew there hadn’t been. This was Neal. This was Neal now. They’d just have to—to start over. Neal flinched when Peter stepped closer so he stopped.

"I’m going to get you out of here," he said. Neal nodded, like he’d expected Peter was going to say that, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he didn’t care. "You just need to sign some forms, and I can take you home."

He gave Neal the papers and a pen and Neal sat down at the table and started reading. Reading the fucking papers like there was a _choice_ in the matter, like working with Peter might be worse than what he already had.

"It’s a good deal," he tried to explain. "Just the three years you had left." Neal turned a page. "I know it’s not perfect, but it’s the best I could do." Another blank stare and page turn.

Peter thought of the hours he’d put into getting the judge to release Neal, the hours and money and energy, the worry, and he wanted to—to _shake_ Neal, shake him and hug him and take him home and feed him.

"Aren’t you going to say anything?"

"He don’t talk," the guard behind him said.

"What do you mean, he doesn’t talk? Of course he talks, I’ve _heard_ him talk. Did something happen to him?" He turned to Neal. "Are you sick? Was your throat damaged?" He did his best not to think of how hollow Neal’s voice had been three years ago, how much could happen in three years, all the ways damage could be inflicted on the delicate lining of a throat.

"No, he just don’t talk." Peter’s stare of incredulity was interrupted by the scratch of a pen across paper. Neal was signing, he realized, and he took a moment to let the relief to wash over him.

"Now let’s get you out of here."

Peter waited outside while Neal went through processing. He’d forgotten that Neal had gone back in during the summer; he was shivering in just a thin white t-shirt when he walked out into the snow. Peter quickly took his coat off and draped it around Neal’s thin shoulders. He was careful not to touch him, thinking about boundaries and flashbacks and all of the reports that had crossed his desk. The photos he’d seen of Neal.

He opened the passenger side door and Neal didn’t say thank you or smile at him or mock him. Just slid in and stared out the window like he had nothing better to do.

"June’s willing to take you back," he said, as he navigated through traffic, trying to see if he could make out the bulge of the anklet through Neal’s thin slacks. Just making sure. “It’s just that she packed everything up and gave most of Byron’s things to charities, after you—it’s all in storage. It’ll take a while to set everything back up. But after that she’ll do it for $700, just like last time."

He switched on the turn signal and they sat at a red light. "You’ve got two choices: we can get you a room at the hotel while June readies your room, or you can take the guest bedroom in our house." He waited for an answer that couldn’t come. "Right. No talking. Uh—hold up one finger for the hotel, two for the guest room."

Neal put his two fingers in the crook of Peter’s arm. It sent a jolt through him. Like Neal might have been a ghost this whole time, a mirage sprung from the well of Peter’s desperation. The pressure of Neal’s hand through his suit jacket meant it was real. All of it, everything, was real.

When Peter drove until they neared the city limits, Neal made a small questioning sound. A little _hmm?_ , and Peter had to clench his jaw to keep from crying. Some analytical part of his brain noted that Neal could still make noises; another part just screamed.

"We moved," he said, when he’d recovered himself. "New house. We have a bigyard, if you can believe it." Neal turned back to the window.

*

Elizabeth ran outside when they pulled up in the driveway. It was still gravel; they’d get it paved, hopefully this year if the Christmas bonuses came through. El ran up to the car, a pair of Peter’s boots jammed on her feet, oversized sweater hanging lopsided off her shoulder. Neal didn’t even open his own door. He sat there and waited for Peter to come around, to take his elbow and guide him out onto the snow, to tell him what he was supposed to do. El was visibly torn—she wanted to hug him, touch him, welcome him—but he looked so small and worried and he was clinging so desperately to Peter’s sleeve.

"It’s good to see you again," she said, and when she stepped towards him, Neal sidestepped behind Peter. "Right." She nodded, like that was understandable behavior, like he’d said ‘hello,’ instead of staring ahead like their new house was a fairytale castle and she was the wicked witch. "You must be cold. Let’s get you inside."

Peter gave him the grand tour. They’d moved to an old farmhouse, with a lot of land and plumbing problems. It was a real fixer-upper. But the rooms were huge and open; the windows looked out over fields that were barren at this point in the season, covered in white. He told Neal that in the Summer they would become a dark, deep green, in the Spring there would be deer, in the Fall the surrounding trees turned would turn a red deeper than fire. It was a place where El could grow her own herbs, and Satch could chase squirrels until he fell over, and they could begin to think about raising a family.

It was a place where Peter could retreat. He’d needed that space, the past three years. But he had thought—with Neal back—that the echoing corners of the huge house would be filled. That the attic and the back staircase and the empty closets wouldn’t seem like they belonged to someone else; that Neal would paint them or fill them or bring them to life.

Three years before, Neal had fit into their lives like a missing puzzle piece. He was the brother and friend and son they’d never had, the beautiful adventurous man they’d had to learn they wanted. He’d scared and excited and challenged them, and before—their relationship had been building, deepening, thriving. Now Peter followed Peter like a well-trained dog, obedient at his heels, keeping his head down and his mouth closed. All Peter could hear was the uncomfortable monotony of his own voice, giving Neal the tour.

Eventually he showed Neal to the guest room. He opened the door and led the way in, but stopped with an abrupt halt after a few seconds. This was the first time Neal had let himself get more than a foot or two away from Peter since they’d met at the car. Neal had stopped in the doorway and was staring at the pictures they’d rescued from his apartment at June’s, the few sketches of Neal’s they’d found and had framed, the suits already hanging in the closet. Moz had donated a stack of books. He’d mailed them over, not even including a note. El said he was holding a grudge. Peter couldn’t blame him.

He straightened the comforter awkwardly while Neal stood on the edge of the room. "I hope you like it," he said finally, when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. He’d have to get better at that, get used to it, try to get rid of it. "If you don’t, you can change it." He gave Neal what he knew was an unconvincing smile. "It’s your room."

It was Neal’s room, but this wasn’t Neal. Who touched the first edition Ginsberg with such hesitant fingers, who avoided eye contact, who had stolen so many things he hadn’t earned ( _beautiful, expensive, priceless things_ ) but looked so overwhelmed by the slippers on the floor, the hats hanging by the door, by Peter, who was still (he would get used to it, he would) waiting for Neal to say something.

"Do you need anything?" Neal shook his head. "If you do, we’re down the hall. We have to leave early for work. The commute’s a little over an hour."

Neal looked worried. He gestured at himself—at his lips, his throat—then shrugged helplessly.

"I don’t know," Peter said, because he had no idea how Neal would be able to work with no voice. "We’ll figure it out. Neal—" ( _and he meant it, he did, he had to_ —) "I promise that you’re not going to go back there."

Because Peter was the only one who could ever catch him if he ran. If Peter didn’t chase—Neal’s eyes got big and his hands (wrapped around the bedpost) tightened. "Try and get some sleep," Peter said. And he closed the door and went downstairs to his wife and his dog and the dinner Neal hadn’t been able to eat, and started planning.

  
*

He didn’t magically get better.

The bed was too soft. And so empty—there was no heavy arm wrapped around his stomach to keep him anchored, no hot breath in his ear to lull him to sleep, and only the last lingering ache of Francois to remind him that this house—this beautiful house, this _home_ —existed in the same world as grey walls and metal bars.

He wandered the house in the dark hours of morning. Satchmo followed him ( _clack of nails on wood_ ); together they patrolled. There was food in the kitchen; he ate an apple. It was the first time in three years he hadn’t eaten at a predetermined mealtime. He left the core on the top of the compost bin. Peter would see it and be happy that he’d eaten.

He walked outside by himself and grabbed a lawn chair off the back porch. He carried it into a far corner of the backyard, the snow soaking his bare feet and the bottom of his pajama pants. He walked to the fence and sat down, awkwardly cross-legged on the plastic chair. He held his feet in hands that were only slightly warmer and breathed through the panic attack that threatened to overwhelm him. This was harder than the adjustment to June’s had been. New York City had been busy, the streets full, June’s guest rooms small enough—he’d been able to close his eyes and pretend, taking comfort in the steady noise and close walls. He couldn’t do that here. There was no ring of clanging doors, no rasping breath in his ear, no horns blaring. He breathed in the silence.

He stared out at the moonlit fields and knew that if he ran, right then, if he decided it was all too much right in that moment, he would freeze to death. He was already shaking. It was, he’d heard, a relatively painless way to die.

He rubbed his toes and watched the stars. Picked out the constellations he knew. And he _tried_ —he tried to whisper their names, the stories of how they got into sky ( _how they had become myth_ ), but all that came out of his mouth was his breath.

Aries was above his head. Aries who had tried to rescue two abused children and was murdered by the surviving boy for his fleece. Known for his stubbornness. The ram in the story had never seemed particularly stubborn to Neal before. But right then, surrounded by black and the option of running and the impossibility of going into the FBI office the next morning and opening his mouth and having nothing come out—right then he thought about the strength it took to simply keep moving. Thought about the mulish set to Hector’s jaw when he made up his mind, the angry bruises Francois’ hands had left on his wrists, the papers Peter had brought him.

He thought about what he knew of strength and wondered if what he had done—choosing the lesser of two evils—he wondered if that counted. He looked at the stars for the first time in three years and remembered Peter’s promise and the ram’s long trek across the sky and cried. On a plastic lawn chair with no shoes or words or hope he cried until hoarse sounds spilled out of his mouth, obscene, until nothing else came out.

He looked out at the empty fields, picked up the chair, and went back inside.

*

He woke up at six because he always woke up at six, half an hour before the alarms went off and the guards starting banging on the bars. Enough time to relieve himself and prepare before his cellmate woke.

Only this morning he woke up to sunlight streaming in through his window. He had to force himself to stay in bed for the next thirty minutes. His skin itched with warning, with danger, with urgency. It would be worse for him if he didn’t prepare and they took him dry. Worse if they had to wait to get their rocks off.

He wondered if he should get up and go through the familiar motions; keep to his old routines. It would make the transition back to prison easier when this fell through. But Peter—Peter had promised him. Peter had promised not to chase him ( _run, run, run_ ). So he clenched his teeth, ignored his instincts, and stared out the window until six thirty.

At six thirty he went to the bathroom ( _only it wasn’t one step away anymore_ ), brushed his teeth ( _an unopened toothbrush was sitting on the counter next to his favorite kind of toothpaste_ ), took a shower ( _hot water, scented shampoo, no one’s hands but his on his body_ ), and opened his closet. He had to decide what to wear.

He breathed in the scents of his old cologne mixed with Byron’s and the unmistakable smell of mothballs. The fabric under his hands was smooth, the colors a spectrum of grays and blues. He’d always prided himself on his sense of color, his sophisticated palate, but after neon orange everything seemed subdued.

The choice—not the amount of options, but the fact he had to choose—stunned him. _You’ve done this before,_ he chided himself. Come straight out of prison and landed not just on his feet but in a penthouse. But he’d—he’d been himself that time, in that prison. Isolated, yes. Literally bored to tears and frustrated and desperate—but himself.

And he’d had Kate, then, to visit him every week and tell him she loved him no matter what.

He was pretty sure ‘no matter what’ didn’t include gangbangs that left him so open they’d gotten two fists inside him at the same time, but Kate was dead. And no one else had ever made him that promise.

He decided on a navy blue suit with pin-stripes that he’d never worn before because it had been too small. It wasn’t until he figured out that he’d still have to wear a belt to hold the slacks up that he realized how much weight he’d lost. Maybe Peter’d had a point when he’d tried to get Neal to eat the night before. He’d have to relearn that. Eating until he was full.

There was no mirror in his room but he looked at his body— _my body, mine_ —and ran a hand over the pronounced ridges of his ribs.

He snatched his hand away and retreated against the wall before his body remembered that he was alone. No one to see him touch himself and make him keep going, or forbid him the right, or replace his hands with their own. He was alone. _Alone, alone, alone_. His body ached with old bruises and the expectation of more.

His hands shook as he put on the undershirt and did up the buttons. A shirt with buttons. A novelty. _I probably look like a cartoon,_ he chided himself as he straightened the jacket and selected a hat. _A boy playing dress up. A fraud_.

But since he’d been a fraud since he first learned the value of a lie, he took a deep breath and walked out of his room. He’d be playing the role of Neal Caffrey today. Smooth, elegant, smart. He ignored the way his hands shook, the way he felt unbalanced without Francois at his side to lean against, and his horrid, useless, missing voice.

He plastered on a smile to hide the fact that he couldn’t breathe. His clothes felt too tight, his skin itched, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He put them in his pockets. Keeping them clasped behind his back would be too submissive for Peter. He’d have to be subtler than that.

Elizabeth was in the kitchen when he went downstairs. The radio was on, playing some song he didn’t recognize. There was no CD player in his room (did they still use CDs?), but he bet if he asked, they’d get him one. He bet if he asked, they’d give him pretty much anything. Of course, he couldn’t ask.

His smile faded. He hadn’t wanted to speak so badly since Nelson had tried to ‘convince’ him that it was in his best interest to beg for cock out loud. Most of the scarring from that incident had faded. He couldn’t read the words, anymore, unless he was touching them (running the tips of his fingers of the familiar ragged lines and uneven curves). A brand on his hip, the curve of his hip up to his stomach, right under the belt that he’d just tightened to its last notch. It read ‘useless fucktoy.’ Nelson had taken pleasure in the crudeness of it all, the sharp blade and blunt words. At least it was spelled correctly.

There was a pad of paper on the table next to a half-full glass of orange juice and an empty plate. He tapped his fingers on the wall to alert Elizabeth of his presence. She jumped and whirled around, wooden spoon pointed at him like a weapon. He raised an eyebrow and she laughed. "Sorry! I didn’t hear you come down the stairs. You look—you look a lot better."

He gave her a quick twirl to show off the suit. His hands were sweating in his pockets, his ribs felt tight. She was checking him out. And she liked what she saw.

"Do you still like eggs? Eggs and cheese? We’ve also got fresh rolls and orange juice." He nodded and she began piling too much food onto a waiting plate. "Peter’s outside digging the car out of the drive. It snowed last night."

 _Good._ It would cover the tracks he’d left in the backyard. Cover the awkward questions they would have asked.

She carried the plate to the table and shook out a cloth napkin before handing it to him with a flourish. He smiled at her and she smiled back and for a moment it was—it was natural. Comfortable.

“Peter never stopped trying,” she whispered. He picked up his fork and tried not to hear her. “He tried everything he could think of. He called in all the favors he was owed, he talked to everyone—”

 _Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up_. If it had been a matter of Peter’s will—if it had been something that could be easily fixed, a clerical error, a silly mistake—it would mean that everything he’d been through was...unnecessary. Avoidable. In another universe, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. A different life where he’d listened to Alex and learned to make smarter choices, or left with Moz the first chance he’d gotten, if Kate hadn’t come to see him before she’d run—

There was no use thinking about it. That was not his life. He forced his fingers to relax their grip on his fork, forced himself to nod like he was accepting Elizabeth’s apology (sorry not that Peter had put him away but that he couldn’t get Neal out quickly enough. They all had different definitions of justice).

His stomach was in knots but he forced himself to chew and swallow, to add salt and pepper like it mattered, to sip his orange juice and wipe his mouth on the napkin (a napkin, a cloth napkin, a world where that was not the exception but the rule).

"Can you write?" She pushed the notebook over to him. "Peter was thinking that it could help. At work. If you could still do research?"

He picked up the pen. Blue, Pilot, extra fine tip, ink half gone, teeth marks on the cap. He wrapped his fingers around it and held it above the page. He could make his signature again. Like he’d done on the forms Peter’d brought. Write his name.

Elizabeth gathered Peter’s dirty dishes. "Give it a shot," she said, before returning to the kitchen and loading the dishwasher.

He turned the pen in slow circles between his fingers. _It’s a pen_ , he told himself. _It’s not going to hurt you_. He didn’t write ‘thank you,’ or ‘useless fucktoy’ or ‘breakfast was lovely.’ He signed Peter’s name, and then Elizabeth’s, and Kate’s and Moz’s, then Nick Halden’s and every other alias he could remember, wrote John Hancock just for kicks, then Jones’ and Diana’s until the page was full, until it looked like a petition, saying in dozens of different names and hands: _I am still Neal Caffrey._

*

When he came inside, Neal was putting his coat on and El was beaming. She pointed at Neal’s bag (Byron’s—scratched, worn, beautiful) and Peter saw the yellow legal pad tucked away. She gave him a thumbs up and he grinned. Neal could write; he was capable of communicating. That would make things easier.

"The car’s warming up."

Neal nodded and finished tugging his hat into place. It was an old one of Peter’s and Neal’s longer hair curled out around the bottom.

"El, do you feel like cooking tonight? Or do you want me to pick something up?"

"Hey, I already made breakfast. My contribution for the day has been made."

"Is Italian okay?"

"Sounds perfect." She came to the door for a quick goodbye kiss. She reached towards Neal for a hug and he shied away behind Peter again. "Bye," she said, trying and failing to hide her hurt at Neal’s unexpected flinch.

He’d shoveled a path from the house to the car, and cleared most of the driveway up to the road. They’d put all-weather tires on the car so they should be fine. Probably. If not, the neighbor had a pick-up and a winch. They’d already had to call on her twice. Neither he nor El had quite mastered the intricacies of country driving.

He waited until Neal was on the other side of the car before bringing it up. It was a cowardly move, but he needed the added distance. "Neal—I have to ask you a question. And I need for you to answer it." Neal tensed, already hunched from the cold. "Your voice. Is it a physical problem? Was your throat damaged?" Neal shook his head. "Is it—is it a mental—thing?" Neal took a minute before nodding slowly, like he hadn’t taken the time to think about it before. Hadn’t felt the need.

"Do you think there’s any chance it could get better soon?" He watched Neal’s slow breaths hang in the air. Eventually, Neal shook his head. "Okay, then. Okay." Neal got in the car and Peter gave himself a few seconds to look as angry as he wanted and to blink back tears and curse under his breath and miss Neal. _His_ Neal, the one he remembered, the one he’d lost. Then he wiped his eyes, composed himself, and got in the car.

Once they were safely on the highway he filled Neal in on the changes in the office. "Jones left a few years ago. He’s in charge of his own team already. He’s happy in Cincinnati—making a few waves, from what I hear. Probably due for another promotion soon. Hughes is still here, of course, although he’s been talking retirement for a few months. I, ah—I’m in line to replace him." He couldn’t help but smile. Neal made a small, pleased noise, and clapped. Peter’s smile grew.

"Thanks. It’s not a huge deal, and it probably won’t happen for another year or two, but. Yeah." He grinned and Neal grinned back. "Right. So—Diana’s still here, serving as my second in command. She and Christie are getting married in a few months. Maybe if you’re nice you can sweet-talk yourself into an invitation. Or, not sweet _talk_ , but—you know what I meant.” He cleared his throat and stared at the road. “And we just got a new probie a month ago. Brad...Knot. I think. Brad Something." Neal raised an eyebrow. "I’ve been too busy to learn names." Neal didn’t look convinced, so Peter chose to ignore him. "Anyway, he seems like a nice enough kid. A bit...weird, though. I think you’ll like him."

He fiddled with the radio and adjusted the heating vents. His hair was wet. The snow that had fallen on him while he was shoveling was melting, a line of water dripped down his face. "I had Cruz transferred. I just...thought she’d fit in better over at organized crime."

After the trial ended, he’d given Hughes a choice. _Her or me_. Hughes cited a hostile work environment and gotten her out before Peter lost his temper and punched her right in her disloyal, double-crossing face. Neal, who had so much more reason to hate her and the testimony which had damned him ( _loose cannon, unreliable, breaks rules for his own gain, untrustworthy_ , thief), clutched his notebook and stared out the window for the remainder of the drive.

*

"We’ve heard a lot about you," Brad Knot told him. Brad Knot who was, indeed, a little weird. He was a big guy, tall and broad. Probably a few inches taller than Peter. Former football player, from the stance. Knee injury in his left leg, judging by the slight limp. He had bushy mustache and big eyebrows and a huge, goofy smile, like he thought he was funny-looking, too.

"You’ve got quite the reputation." And Brad was trying to be kind, trying to start a conversation. Just a little joke so they could laugh together, break the ice— _you’ve got quite the reputation, whore, slut, boy, pussy._ He wondered if he’d ever be able to have a normal conversation again. Well. If he ever started talking back, that is.

He looked up at Hughes’ office, through the glass walls. Looked at Peter, who was trying to convince Hughes that Neal was worth it. Lying, maybe, and saying he’d get better. "So you really don’t talk, huh?" Neal nodded. "That’s cool. Well, not cool, but. There was a girl in my elementary school who didn’t talk. She was autistic, though. Hey, Peter told us about that time you jumped four stories out of a window and bought the bakery next door. That was _awesome_. I jumped out a first-story window during a training drill at the academy and sprained my ankle." He laughed; a huge laugh, Neal startled at the noise ( _oh, Francois. I almost forgot you_ ). "You must be like a cat. Or a buttered piece of bread. Landing on the right side like you do."

Diana walked over, carrying two steaming cups of coffee. She was better at the yes/no conversations than Brad. "You want coffee?" Neal shook his head. "More for me," she’d said, before sitting down at her desk—the desk that had been Neal’s. There wasn’t space for him anymore. He was on the wrong side of his old desk now, while he waited. A visitor. A guest.

"I gotta admit, though, I’m glad you’re finally here," Brad said, somehow contorting himself to put his feet up on the edge of his desk without tipping over. "It’s hard to compete with a guy you’ve never met. You left some big damn shoes to fill."

Brad was jealous, and Neal itched for Peter. He readied himself for a fight—he knew it was absurd, knew Brad wouldn’t hurt him, not now, not where people could see him, but he’d learned the hard way how to go on the defensive at the slightest sign of danger.

A few minutes later, Peter left Hughes’ office. And he was smiling. Neal let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and sagged back into his chair. "You’re crazy if you thought Peter would let Hughes say no," Diana murmured.

"Ends of the earth, and all that," Brad chimed in.

Before he could decipher what they meant, Peter was there. "Congratulations, Neal. You’ve got yourself a desk job," Peter said with a grin, coming to stand by Neal’s side. He put his hand on Neal’s shoulder. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it or know what it meant. Neal felt it like a shock through his body. He wanted to respond—to thank him, kiss him, kneel for him. Peter looked at the sitting arrangements and frowned. "A desk job, but no desk. Guess you’ll have to work in my office for the time being." Brad snorted and Diana hid her smile behind her coffee mug and Neal leaned against Peter’s side.

By the time they were ready to leave, Neal was exhausted. His cheeks hurt from smiling and his shoulders and back ached with tension. _Seven people had touched him. Seven people had touched him while Peter was watching_.

They walked to the car together. Neal kept one hand on his bag (his notebook and his pens, his new voice) and the other hand hovering just a bit too far away from his body. In case Peter slowed down or leaned towards him or reached out. Neal would be ready to respond to his touch. Lean into him or wrap their hands together or get on his knees. But Peter just walked outside ( _cold, this sensation he knew_ ) and unlocked the car.

It felt safe in the Taurus. With the doors closed and locked, the heater blasting, classical music playing, with Peter right there. Neal’s hands barely shook at all. He didn’t know why they wouldn’t settle—he didn’t think he was nervous. Just tired. Tired and tense and, _oh_ , terrified, he realized, when Peter shut his door and tossed the ice scraper into the backseat, a casual motion, his arm across his body, his fist next to Neal’s face. _Seven people_. Seven people and an enclosed space and a day of pretending to be someone else and any balance that he’d achieved that morning when he’d buttoned his vest and combed his hair and slipped on his old familiar mask was gone. He stared at his hands, folded over his bag, and watched them shake.

"It’s okay," Peter said. "You’re going to be fine."

And once they were out of city traffic Peter took one of his hands off of the steering wheel, reached across the seat, and put his hand over Neal’s. Peter’s fingers were still cold. He wasn’t wearing gloves. And Neal started to tremble even worse but he grabbed at Peter’s wrist when Peter tried to pull it back. "It’s okay," Peter murmured, and Neal wondered how bad he must look to inspire that particular tone of voice. "You’re okay."

 _Not yet_ , Neal thought, and held on to Peter’s wrist until he fell asleep.

*

When he woke up they were back at the house. There was an unfamiliar car parked on the road in front of it. When Neal stepped out of Peter’s car, Mozzie stepped out of his. He looked—he looked exactly the same. The same hunched posture and horrible glasses and scarves round his neck.

The wind was blowing so he saw but didn’t hear Moz say his name.

And he felt but barely believed it when Moz walked up to him, ignoring Peter entirely, and hugged him.

The shoulders of Moz’s stiff coat stuck out awkwardly and Neal’s was so thick Moz’s arms barely reached all the way around him, and also, Moz was hugging him. "I should have done this years ago," Moz said, his face muffled against Neal’s chest. "I never should have let them take you."

Peter watched and Moz held on until Neal closed his eyes. They were watering because the wind was blowing. The wind and whatever else, some unfamiliar emotion he shoved aside, snowflakes and farewells he’d stopped thinking about years ago. At some point between Hector and Tom, when the silence had stopped scaring him and started to feel like a treasure. He’d never have to say goodbye again. He ducked his head down and hid his face in the scratchy fabric of Moz’s coat.

It didn’t feel right, exactly. It didn’t feel familiar. Didn’t feel safe. But it was Moz. Moz who was—Moz who was crying. Messily, unabashedly, because of _Neal_. "You dumb, idealistic bastard," he was saying. "You son of a bitch." And Neal smiled because no one could see him do it. "I missed you," Moz said, pulling back. "I missed you every day.

“Say something,” Moz insisted, stepping back and grabbing Neal’s shoulders. "Or—are you that mad at me?"

Neal looked to Peter for help. "He doesn’t talk," Peter said gruffly, very obviously torn about whether he should leave them alone and go inside or continue waiting for Neal. "Apparently, he’s been like that for a while. Don’t know why."

Moz took a step back and Neal went with him, Moz’s arm was around his waist ( _breathe. Breathe, it’s just Moz, just Moz and Peter, El will be waiting inside to cushion Peter’s jealousy_ ). "I’ve got a plane," Moz said quietly, and Peter stiffened but did his best to pretend that he wasn’t listening. That he didn’t care. "We can go anywhere."

And Neal stepped back and looked up at an unfamiliar sky and had to shake his head. He didn’t even fit in his own body. He’d never fit on a plane, not in a foreign country, he barely kept track of the English language, he couldn’t—he couldn’t leave Elizabeth and Peter. He looked at the sky, a dark, heavy grey, and blinked away the snowflakes that drifted onto his lashes. He wasn’t ready to run. _Not yet._

Moz grabbed his hand and shoved a cell phone into it. "Anything goes wrong, anything at all, you call me. I’ll be here in minutes. I’m speed dial number one, June’s two, Alex is three. If you can’t talk, just—just press some buttons or something so I know it’s you. I’ll brush up on my Morse code." He shifted his weight and stepped closer, whispering so that Peter wouldn’t hear them. "The Suits are speed deal four." _The Suits. Right_.

Moz stood awkwardly and waited and Neal tried to remember how to say thank you when neither blowjobs nor words were an option. It was an awkward minute before he could think of anything. Then Moz grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him in again. "Goddamn," Mozzie said. "Goddamn." And he sounded angry and grateful and Neal stood still until he could let go. "Remember—anytime, any reason—speed dial number 1." Neal nodded. "I’ve got to go. I’m—” he looked at Neal for a long moment and Neal just shrugged helplessly because he had no idea what Moz was looking for. “I’m really glad that you’re back.”

*

Every day of his first week out of prison Neal woke up at 6:30, bathed, went through the ordeal of opening his closet and getting dressed, braced himself, and went downstairs. He ate whatever El gave him for breakfast ( _all of it, even when he wasn’t hungry, even when Satch begged for scraps by his knee, he ate it all_ ) and then trailed Peter out the door.

On the drive they would listen to whatever radio station Peter picked out (no matter how much they’d fought about it _before_ , no matter how many times Peter tried to get Neal’s hand to move to the controls by playing country and pop and hard rock).

Then he’d sit in Peter’s office and sit hunched over old case files. He’d work until Peter led him outside and bought him lunch, and then through the afternoon until the drive home.

It felt like a routine. It worked. _They_ worked. Neal did whatever Peter told him to do without question or complaint. Without saying—well. Anything.

*

Neal solved his first case on Thursday. Brad won $400 from the betting pool for that one.

And the entire first week Peter felt the rumble of an avalanche deep in his body, the screech of metal about to snap shivering through his bones, the pressure of a storm about to break weighing him down.

Peter hated Neal’s routine. Hated the way Neal was so compliant and submissive and—lost. Terribly, undeniably lost.

He wanted to help. He _tried_ to help. But every time he reached out, Neal would freeze or flinch or lean into him just a bit too quickly, just a bit too…intimately. So he kept his distance, watched Neal walk around like a trapped, wounded animal, and waited for the storm to break.

*

They’d scheduled a hospital visit for Neal when they’d learned his release date. Saturday was the soonest they could squeeze him in, so they stumbled through the work week with the appointment looming on the horizon. In the meantime, he watched Neal for signs of pain. Asked him a couple of times if he felt okay, if he hurt, but Neal always just shook his head and looked away.

Peter had worried about what the doctor would find. Worried about what the physical exam would reveal, what the blood test might say, how long the recovery would take. He’d been dreading the end of the visit and what would come after that. He needn’t have worried. They didn’t get that far.

Neal, for all he didn’t talk, was hardly uncommunicative. He made his opinions known through mime and sketches, he even wrote notes, sometimes, if he got to the point where he had to write something out to be understood. But when Peter parked the car in the hospital lot, Neal just went still.

Since Neal didn’t move, Peter opened his door for him, like he had the first day, and put a hand on Neal’s elbow. Neal didn’t move.

He had to physically pull Neal out of the car.

Neal didn’t fight him, exactly—he just—he wouldn’t move on his own. He put one foot in front of the other only when he was in danger of overbalancing, as if—as if he didn’t want to go but had forgotten how to fight.

And when Peter began dragging him through the parking lot and towards the entrance, Neal started to make sounds. Like a child caught in a nightmare. Terrified and disoriented.

Peter felt like a monster. He was just trying to help Neal, who, despite his obvious terror, didn’t dig his heels in, didn’t try to get back to the car—he just stared at Peter and tried to speak. Tried to say _no, please, I don’t want this_. And couldn’t.

Peter stood still in the middle of the parking lot, people passing curiously by them, Neal oblivious to everything but Peter’s arm on his shoulder and the building looming in front of them like a death sentence.

He took Neal back to the car and cancelled the appointment.

*

The next morning he pulled a few strings, and El made a few phone calls, and they got an appointment for Neal on Monday afternoon with El’s doctor; an older woman with an office in a converted townhouse.

“We have to,” he told Neal. “The FBI can’t hire you without a physical on the record. And we need—you should get tested,” he finished, and he hadn’t whispered that last bit because he didn’t want Neal to be ashamed, whatever the results, but it came out crass and loud in the car. He saw Neal flinch.

Monday afternoon they took off work early. Neal sat in the car as stiff as a board, lips pressed together so tightly they went white around the edges. Peter had tried to prepare himself for the possibility that he’d have to force Neal inside the office again, but Neal walked inside on his own when Peter opened his door and put a careful hand on his arm.

They walked in side by side, Peter signed them in, and they filled out Neal’s forms together. He knew most of Neal’s medical info, but Neal pointed to boxes he forgot to check and then borrowed the pen to write in the information that Peter didn’t have. Their handwriting couldn’t have been more different—Peter’s broad messy strokes, Neal’s shaky uncertain letters. Peter dropped the form off at the front desk and sat back down. They stared at the giant fish tank that took up most of one of the walls. Tropical and vibrant and lazy. Mesmerizing. They stared at the fish so they wouldn’t have to look at each other.

“Neal Caffrey?” they both looked up. Neal didn’t move.

“That’s you,” Peter said. Neal didn’t move. “Right. You knew that.” They both waited. “You have to do this,” Peter told him quietly.

The nurse with the clipboard was waiting patiently for them, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. Hell, maybe it did. “Do you—do you want me to go with you?”

Neal nodded. Peter put a hand on Neal’s elbow to help him up and Neal let out a—a whimper. Peter closed his eyes and pulled Neal the rest of the way out of the chair and then down the hallway. Neal stayed half a step behind Peter, on his right side.

He didn’t know what the nurse was thinking. He hoped he didn’t look like an abusive boyfriend. Hoped Neal didn’t look as traumatized to her as he seemed to Peter.

When the examination started, he tried to pretend he wasn’t there; for his own sake and for Neal’s. He hummed a little bit so he wouldn’t hear the doctor talking about Neal’s weight or blood pressure, he tried to be unobtrusive. But then the nurse handed Neal a gown, asked him to take his clothes off, and told him that the doctor would be there when he was done.

Neal undressed himself so slowly. One careful piece at a time, like they’d asked him to strip off his armor before heading into battle.

And when he was naked, Neal just stood there. Shivering in the warm office. The only thing he was wearing was the tracker.

Peter helped Neal into the gown. Eased the pastel paper gown over the bruises on Neal’s body. Tied the back closed with careful bows, took Neal’s clothes from his shaking hands, and carefully folded them before calling the doctor back into the room.

Dr. Patel introduced herself with a smile. El had explained the situation to her over the phone and she handled Neal with a quiet confidence. She did all of the tests herself, talked to Neal calmly and clearly, and explained everything that she was doing. She was as patient as a saint. And Neal definitely tested her patience.

It took him seven tries to take a breath deep enough for her to listen to his lungs. He was so tense that his breath came out in shaky gasps, loud and uneven. Neal’s face was tense with misery, his blush a deep crimson.

Halfway through the exam, Peter realized that Neal wasn’t just avoiding eye contact with them, he was staring _at_ something. When Patel wasn’t specifically asking him to focus on one thing, Neal’s eyes kept flicking to the same spot. He was fixated on something.

The stirrups on the edge of the exam table. After the eye exam, when he’d been facing the opposite wall, the first thing Neal did was look at the metal stirrups. Like they were going to attack him if he looked away for too long, like they were dangerous.

Peter—Peter really didn’t want to think about it. About the way Neal had been in the parking lot of the hospital, about the fact that he’d barely eaten since then, about the shapes of the bruises on his bodies. Didn’t want to think about the noise Neal made when the doctor tried to do a rectal exam. A moan like a wounded animal, involuntary and miserable. Patel backed off and Peter twined his fingers briefly with Neal’s instead of just holding onto his wrist.

He didn’t want to think about what had happened to Neal when he’d been hurt in prison. About what happened after the evidence photos were snapped and he was placed in the medical ward. Didn’t want to think about Neal, bound and splayed and helpless, didn’t want to think about the protests Neal may have made when there was no one to listen to them.

His fingers went numb before the exam was over because Neal held onto him so tightly.

When the exam was finished Peter helped Neal dress, made sure they had the information they needed about Neal’s nutritional needs, and walked outside. They only made it a few steps before Neal twisted like he’d tripped on something. He would have gone down if Peter hadn’t grabbed him. Within seconds they were both crouched on the ground of this tiny parking lot in a small suburban neighborhood, Peter covering Neal’s body like he’d been trained to by the FBI, protecting Neal from the world because he couldn’t help Neal fight himself.

Neal just—sobbed. Gasping for breath like he’d just finished a marathon, like he’d finally given up after miles on an uphill road. The sobs wracked his body and Peter felt—grateful. Neal’s thin body was shaking in his arms, Neal was too helpless to stand on his own, and Peter was fighting off a smile. Fighting off tears, too, he wasn’t heartless, he just—he’d been afraid that nothing would change. That Neal would wander through the rest of their lives like a ghost. Afraid that Neal was just _different_ now, different and silent and slowly fading, and that was the only way it could be. For the first time since Neal had laid two careful fingers on the crook of Peter’s arm, he felt real.

He held Neal until he stopped crying, looked away while he wiped his eyes, let go of his hand when he pulled away, and drove them home. The next morning Neal ate everything on his plate and then held if out for a second helping.

*

That night, in bed, El held Peter while he cried. Because the ordeal had been necessary but that didn’t make it any less painful, because he hadn’t been able to do anything but _be_ there—because they’d taken one small step forward but he was beginning to realize how much further they had to go.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time he touched himself, it felt like a betrayal.

His hand shook with tension, as if he was struggling against the grasp of some imaginary enemy ( _only they were real. He knew their names, knew their families_ ). His fingers were awkward around his cock like they hadn’t been since he was nine and just beginning to discover what his body was capable of.

He started to stroke himself. He tried to remember what he liked. He looked at the door, at the lock, and for some reason, waited for Peter to come in.

But it was silent and he was alone and he wanted very badly to come. He’d woken up hard and rutting against the blankets, a warm dream quickly fading. He tried to finish himself off, but it wasn’t easy. His body was ready but his mind kept getting in the way.

It wasn’t working. He could think of nothing except how awkward it was until the clock neared 7. And then he thought about Francois. He wrapped his fingers around his cock again, slowly, carefully, and imagined Francois pressed tight around his back, beard scrapping against Neal’s neck. Telling him how sexy he looked, how jealous everyone in the surrounding cells were. Begging Neal to make a sound, any sound, when he came.

He came and the memory of Francois faded as fast as his dream had. His hand was covered in his own semen. He was sweaty, his hair was stuck to his forehead, the clock was ticking past 7. He was going to be late.

He spent the day jumping at shadows and crowding too close to Peter’s side. Afraid that someone was going to look at him and know he wanted it.

It had felt good. He didn’t want anyone to know. He was irrationally convinced that they’d all smell it on him. Semen and sweat and need. _Slut_. He touched the scars on his hip whenever he wasn’t actively reminding himself not to. Both he and Peter were worn out by the end of the day.

He got in the shower after dinner. Not something he normally did, but Peter told him over and over and over again that he got to do whatever he wanted. And he wanted to make sure every hint of sex was washed from his body.

But when the hot water started running, he got down on his knees. Put one hand over his mouth to muffle any sound and the other around his dick, and he started jerking off. Not because anyone wanted him to, not because he had to, not because he was weak, not because he was warped. Because he wanted to. Because he liked the way his body felt limp and relaxed afterwards, because it felt like he was reminding his body how to feel good, because—because this was one of the parts of his life that he hadn’t ever expected he’d get back. Masturbating in a shower. Mundane and lewd and habitual, one of the many things he hadn’t known he could lose, one of the many things he never thought he’d have again.

He finished, washed his hair with Peter’s shampoo (which he tried not to do too often), and got out just as the hot water was running out.

He went out on the porch, that night. Wearing his own slippers, wrapped in Byron’s robe, Satchmo panting on his feet. Felt the warmth fade from his body and the cold set in and savored the sensation. _This is my body_ , he told himself. It felt like show-and-tell, like preschool, something he had to learn again. _This is_ my _body_.

*

  
"I like him."

"You like everyone," Diana replied with a roll of her eyes.

"That is not true. What about...Ruiz? I don’t like Ruiz," Brad said triumphantly.

"Nobody likes Ruiz," she said condescendingly. "And I saw the birthday card that you bought for him."

"It was the man’s birthday! Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean I have no _heart_. Unlike some people I could name."

Diana rolled her chair over next to his. "Ruiz is a big part of the reason Neal got locked up again," she said quietly.

She went back to her desk and Brad stared at Peter’s office. Neal was working up there again. Sitting at the side of the desk, occasionally sliding his notepad over to Peter.

Sometimes Brad felt like he was walking blindfolded through a minefield. He’d been with the unit for a couple months and he still got blindsided with back stories he didn’t see coming. Diana filled him in when she had to, but she seemed to enjoy withholding information. He didn’t begrudge her the upper-hand. Peter was a hard boss to work for. Even Diana, who’d been with the man for years, caught the sharp end of his tongue more than seemed fair.

When he’d first been assigned to the unit, he’d thought Peter was simply focused on the job. Too busy for incompetence and too impatient to suffer fools. Peter yelled at the agents who got temporarily assigned to large cases until they sat down, shut up, and followed his orders to the letter. He had no love for the higher-ups, and only seemed to listen to Hughes because—well, because Hughes was a scary son-of-a-bitch. It wasn’t until Neal arrived that he realized that Peter was actually a decent guy with a sense of humor and a nice smile.

"Was it like this before?" Diana sighed, but turned her chair around to look at him. "When Neal was here the first time?"

Diana followed his gaze and looked up at Neal and Peter, their heads nearly touching, both writing on the same piece of paper. "Like the two of them are members of a club that you really want to join, and neither of them seems to realize it?"

"I meant about Peter, and how much happier he seems now. But—yeah. Like a secret club."

"Pretty much exactly," she said decisively.

They both went back to work.

For about five minutes, because the fraud case he was working seemed to be constructed entirely of dead ends and he was getting bored. "Can we start our own secret club? I’ve already got a great secret handshake."

"Get to work," she snapped.

He was pretty sure that when she saw the flag he’d sketched, she’d totally be into it.

*

One week later and he’d learned that 401(k) regulations had two loopholes he’d never explored before, that Neal Caffrey was about eight times smarter than he was, that Diana definitely did not want to be in his club, and that Caffrey was suffering from a pretty damn severe case of PTSD. Oh—and that the bakery down the street had the best bearclaws he’d ever had in his entire _life_.

The 401(k) thing he’d learned after Neal had solved his case for him, which is also how he learned how freaky smart the man was; that Diana didn’t want to be in his club he’d learned through clever use of his deductive reasoning skills, and that Caffrey had PTSD? Well, aside from just using the smarts that God and his momma had given him, there was the fact that the man jumped like a cat when he was startled, that he twitched whenever there were loud noises, and that he never stood or sat with his back to a door if he could help it.

Which also explained why he liked to work in Peter’s office so much. The glass walls, the chair at the end of the desk—it was the perfect vantage point. The new desk Neal had been assigned in the bullpen was squished into a corner facing the wall, wedged between the desks of two agents from another unit who talked across it pretty constantly.

*

The next morning Brad came in, munching on his bearclaw, and sat down in Neal’s chair. When Peter and Neal came in (exactly two minutes late, which seemed to be their standard arrival time) they both stopped and stared at him.

"This pastry? Is excellent," he informed them. He twisted back and forth in the chair for a second. "Hey, boss—do you think I could switch desks with Neal? You don’t mind, do you, Neal? It’s just that this chair is better for my back than the other one, and I can’t switch just the chair because this one won’t fit under the other desk, and I could raise the other desk off the ground but then there’s this whole skewed—”

"Shut it, Brad." He blinked innocently up at Peter. "Neal, do you mind switching desks?" Neal looked between them a couple of times and then shook his head. "You sure?" Neal nodded, and Brad beamed up at him.

"Thanks, man! You’re a lifesaver. Speaking of which—I’ve got an extra roll around here somewhere, you want some? I just like the name, don’t actually care for the taste."

He rambled as Peter went up to his office, kept talking as he and Neal switched all of their belongings over, and finally shut up once Neal was sitting in his new desk, his back to Diana’s workspace, clear view of the entrance to the office in front of him. Then Brad turned around, wedged himself into his tiny new working space, and finished eating his bearclaw.

*

Patel called them back a week later. Neal’s tests had come back positive for a couple of STIs, some that were curable and others that were manageable. Nothing serious, nothing—nothing fatal.

After Peter recovered from the rush of relief that had nearly knocked his feet out from under him he went to the pharmacy, filled the prescriptions, and made sure that Neal followed the directions on the bottles _exactly_. Neal seemed to be amused by his zealous mother-henning and obediently took his pills with full glasses of water or light meals. Peter asked him, every morning, if he felt better. Neal just nodded at him every morning for two weeks and then, one day, one day like any other, Neal wandered down the stairs at exactly 6:45 and instead of nodding, he smiled.

Peter should have appreciated that moment more. Because when Elizabeth went upstate to visit her sister and her new baby, everything went to hell.

*

Neal had gotten into one fight on the inside. And he had planned it very carefully. In full view of the guards, in a well-lit room where they would be separated quickly. He’d punched another inmate in the face and then curled up to protect himself as best as possible to weather the retaliation until the guards intervened.

After Hector died, it had been a free-for-all. Everyone wanted a piece of him and he had nothing left to give and no power to withhold. He’d figured that solitary was his best option. Some respite from the assaults, time to himself, room to breathe again. And he’d gotten what he’d been asking for.

It was a curse, Moz had told him. _May you find what you are looking for_. He’d looked for Kate for years. His second time in prison he was just looking to be alone.

He’d never been in solitary before, in the years he’d spent during his first period of incarceration. He’d been a model prisoner when he was in maximum security. Played the game and gotten the privileges that came from greasing the right palms and playing nice with the other inmates. After the dog-eat-dog world of general population, he was ready for a change.

Solitary was...solitary was hell.

Solitary was twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four locked in a room by himself. Being driven crazy by the silence and being punished for screaming, solitary was food shoved through a slot in the door and dying for just a glimpse of the guard’s fingers. It was handcuffs put on once a day for a trip to a tiny room where he could do pull-ups, more white walls and the trip between which quickly became the highlight of his day.

Walking down hallways with guards’ hands on his elbows to keep him moving, their fingers brushing against his wrists when he was released, maybe—sometimes—saying _hello, Caffrey, how’s it going_.

He’d thrown one punch, gotten two months, and vowed never to fight back again. With Elizabeth gone to visit her sister, the house emptier than ever and Peter’s temper uncertain, Neal made his move.

*

Peter was downstairs watching the game on TV. Probably reading over a case file during commercials. Usually Neal would stay with him. He liked working next to Peter, especially when most of Peter’s attention was fixed on something else. Today, though, he had something different planned.

He went upstairs after dinner and got ready. A bit after nine he heard the TV turn off, then the sounds of Peter cleaning up: putting his beer bottle in the recycling, letting Satchmo in from the backyard.

His skin started to crawl when the stairs began to creak. He bit the inside of his cheek and fought down his nerves as best as he could.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the texture of the bedspread against his skin, listened to the sound of the wind against the window, the rattle it made against the frame. They were new details but it was a familiar exercise. Concentrating on his environment to shut down his awareness of his body.

The door opened and he counted out a full two seconds before he could bring himself to open his eyes. Peter was standing in the doorway to his bedroom, staring at Neal with his mouth and eyes wide open.

Neal curved his lips in something that he hoped resembled a smile.

“Neal,” Peter said, as if he were choking on disappointment, but Neal knew _want_ when he saw it. And he saw it in the way Peter’s eyes drifted over his body.

Neal was naked, but he wasn’t hard. He’d tried and failed to bring himself to an erection—his skin was still tender from the amount of time he’d spent trying to convince his body that he was ready for it, this time—so he tilted his hips away from the door as much as he could. Tried to create some echo of Botticelli.

It was maybe the first time since he’d been released that he felt like he knew what he was doing. He was offering himself to Peter, and Peter was walking towards the bed, Peter was looking at his body ( _too skinny, too skinny for Peter, but he’d been eating he’d been trying he was smiling_ ).

He hadn’t prepared himself. He had mentally, as much as he’d been able, but not physically. He’d brought lotion in with him from the bathroom but hadn’t opened himself up. It was a gamble, hopefully one that wouldn’t hurt him too badly if he’d bet wrong—but he figured that Peter would want to do that. To pretend that Neal was a virgin, that it was their wedding night, pretend Neal was the other version of himself that would actually have wanted this.

“Neal,” Peter said again, and Neal raised an eyebrow in expectation. But instead of taking off his clothes Peter picked up his bathrobe. “You don’t have to do this.”

Neal didn’t like being lied to.

He got on his knees, shuffled to the edge of the bed, and stroked himself with his right hand. He was half-hard within seconds. It was easier with Peter in the room, the threat of his body close by. He’d had years, after all, to train his body for this. He pinched a nipple with his left hand, rolling it between his fingers, trying to convince Peter that feeling guilty was a waste of time. He shouldn’t feel bad about taking what he was offered.

Peter stepped forward, and Neal…relaxed.

That surprised him more than anything. That Peter ( _tall, strong, too close_ ) registered as anything other than a threat.

He’d planned on pretending. He was used to pretending. But Peter stepped forward and Neal’s hips swayed towards him, his eyelids flickered shut, some crossed wires in his fucked-up brain actually, honestly, wanted Peter to touch him.

He hated that his response wasn’t forced, wasn’t calculated, hated that Peter would know how helpless Neal was before him. How much Neal needed. He’d see it in the way that Neal leaned towards him when he stepped forward and sighed when Peter ran a hand down the speed bumps that his ribs had become.

If Peter took this—took him—they would be okay. Neal would earn the protection that Peter was giving him. It would be a contract, not a gift that could be taken away ( _like it had been before_ ). Slowly, Peter knelt down in front of him, and for one breathless, expectant second, Neal thought that Peter was going to suck him. Instead Peter put his hand on Neal’s hip.

Right on top of the scars.

For one horrible, frozen moment, Peter’s fingertips traced the letters. Neal couldn’t move as Peter spelled out the words that were carved into his body.

“I saw this,” Peter whispered. “They sent me copies of all the medical reports. I saw—”

And Neal tore himself away and scrambled off the other side of the bed until his back was against the wall, he covered his scars with one hand and his cock with the other and gasped, lungs tight, he _couldn’t breathe_. Peter held his hands up in surrender and stared at the floor.

“I’m sorry.”

And he looked at Peter’s lips, at the creases in the corners of his eyes, and had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Because the last time he’d heard those words from Peter it had been like this. Peter on his knees and Neal with no forgiveness in his mouth. Only that time Peter had been holding Neal’s tracker in his hands and Neal hadn’t known what was in store for him. Three years later and the words still sounded _wrong_ out of Peter’s mouth; Neal still didn’t want them.

"I did everything that I could. I _swear_."

Peter held up the bathrobe and Neal grabbed it on his way out of the room.

*

He slammed the door shut on his way out, stalked to his bedroom, then closed and locked his door. He held the terrycloth bathrobe in clenched fists until his knuckles ached, trying to convince the adrenaline burning in his body that he hadn’t failed.

 _I get to run_ , he told himself fiercely. _If I want to, I can leave. Right now. And Peter won’t stop me_. He crouched in his room, back against the door, and repeated that over and over until he could breathe again.

He looked at his room—the room that the Burkes had set aside for him before they knew that he would be released, before they’d known June’s apartment would be unavailable, before they’d known that he’d choose them instead of the motel—he looked at the room and the gifts and the decorations and tried to convince himself that he was worth it.

Nelson, his third keeper—the one before Francois—had been bored on a Saturday afternoon, had borrowed a makeshift knife from a friend, and then carved the words into Neal’s body one excruciating letter at a time. It had barely healed, the scars still red and tender, when the guards realized that Nelson was going to kill Neal if they didn’t do something. They’d transferred him to Francois’ cell with the words on his hips inflamed like an advertisement, a label, a gift card.

Neal was familiar with cruelty now in a way he’d never had to be before. The crudeness and brutality and permanence of it. Nelson had taught him that lesson well. And—and it didn’t matter whether or not the words were true. Didn’t matter how gently Peter had touched the scars or how warm his fingers had been or how terribly it had hurt when Nelson had cut it into him. It might be false but it was still _his_. In his skin and on his body.

And he did not know why. But something inside of him said _you deserve this_. The scars, yes, but also the room and the robe and the sign at work with his name on it, _Neal Caffrey_ engraved on cheap plastic in a truly hideous font.

And he did not know why. But something inside of him that had been counting on Peter to save him, something that had been waiting, dormant for three years now, said _you don’t need him for that_. Something that had been broken and beaten before it had been forgotten whispered to him when his knuckles were sore and his eyes burned with unshed tears and his muscles were tense with panic: _you have survived_.

*

The new house was old.

Two stories high with an unfinished basement, a wide rambling porch in the backyard, and a garden that was more weed than vegetable. As winter began to melt into spring, the Burkes decided it was time to start to work on the house.

Neal helped paint. He scraped old layers off the walls and helped select the new colors for the rooms. Elizabeth took him to the Home Depot and they stood in front of the paint swatches for what felt like hours, comparing shades of Tropical Aqua with Caribbean Orange, Cerulean Mist with Intangible Apricot.

He was also starting to gain some weight back. Maybe a pound a week. Some weeks were bad, though; some weeks Peter was out of the office on a case or someone grabbed him to say hello and took him by surprise. Some weeks it was harder to forget than others and his plates stayed half-full.

As he worked on the house, he began to get back some muscle. He and Peter would return from work in the early evening, have dinner, and they’d all get to work on the house. Some nights Peter would pull out his case files, but Neal liked to leave his work in the city; he didn’t want to bring the evidence photos and witness reports into this house.

It was a beautiful house. And with cornflower blue trim on the floorboards and a fresh eggshell white brightening some of the walls, it was almost...charming. Neal went to bed sore and tired and slept through the night for almost three straight weeks.

But the house was a myth, he learned, after he’d finished the last of the hallways and spent a weekend scheming about what he could do with the basement.

He stumbled on a box of financial records when he was exploring a deep storage closet.

 _We love the country_ , Peter had said. _There’s room for Satchmo to run_ , Elizabeth had explained.

The house was old, beautiful, and charming. It was also a long drive from the city, run-down, in need of new plumbing and it would be nice if the driveway got paved sometime before the next winter. It also cost $300,000 less than their last house had sold for.

 _What_ , Neal wondered, _would the Burkes need $50,000 for_?

The house was a myth. The happy family home ( _this is your room_ ), the wide expanse of land and the open sky. He dug as deep as he could into all the records he could access over the next five days, and on Friday afternoon, he brought a piece of paper into Peter’s office.

A $5o0,000 transfer had been made to Judge Tyler three weeks before Neal’s final appeal had gone through. 500,000 untraceable, inexplicable dollars had been transferred into an offshore account that was so well hidden it had taken Neal every ounce of skill he had to find it.

He didn’t write anything on the piece of paper he’d found in the basement, didn’t comment on it, didn’t ask any questions. He just set it down on Peter’s desk and stood there. Waiting for Peter to tell him the truth.

"I didn’t want you to find out about this," Peter said finally, voice gone a bit hoarse. "Not yet, anyway."

Neal wanted the old house back. He wanted the claustrophobic yard and the handmade shelves, the paintings that Elizabeth had bought because of how they’d look on walls that she’d planned on looking at for years. Neal wanted that house back, wanted the money back, wanted to be rid of the obligation, the _debt_ —

"I would have paid twice as much," Peter continued. "It just took a while to find a judge who was willing and discreet. And then it took a bit longer to raise the money." _June_ , Neal thought, his lungs clenching. _Moz_. "I don’t regret a single cent that we spent," and Peter’s fingers were hovering over the figures laid out in black and white on top of his desk (Peter’s savings, his retirement fund). "I just wish that we’d done it sooner."

Neal was angry. Furious. _Pissed_ , with an energy running through him that he couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t his money, they’d done it to _help_ him, why was he...

Even with all of the things that had happened to him in prison, he’d never been sold before. Rented, yes, because Nelson had understood that favors were a powerful currency and that Neal’s ass was a valuable commodity, so he’d traded Neal’s ass for a few packs of cigarettes, his mouth for a bottle of toilet wine. Peter had bought the rest of his life for 500,000.

Peter had bought his freedom for more than Neal knew he was worth.

Neal left the printout on Peter’s desk, carefully opened and closed the office door behind him, went to the men’s room, punched the wall until his knuckles bled, and waited for the work day to end.

*

He stopped working on the house. Left the opened cans of paint with pretentious, impossible names sitting in half-finished hallways. Sat in his room ( _too big, too old, too fragile_ ) and stared at the spots of mildew on the ceiling.

If he’d had anywhere to go, any friends he didn’t owe, he would have left.

Then Elizabeth bought the porch swing.

He’d heard her cursing through his window, looked at the driveway, and saw her wrestling with the black metal monstrosity she’d somehow tied to the roof of her car. He’d gone to help her because even if he was trying to avoid her it didn’t mean he wanted to see her get _crushed_ to death.

They carried the swing to the back porch together. It was a simple bench; black supports on either side that they dug into the ground, a wooden bench hanging from them on rusted chains. She’d bought it at a yard sale ( _for only ten dollars!_ He tried not to see the printout, Peter’s fingers hovering over too many zeros).

He helped her set it up and when he tried to go back inside she and Satchmo had fixed him with identical entreating glances.

“It’s so beautiful out here,” she murmured after he sat down. The air had a bite to it and the ground under their feet was still damp with melted snow. The trees were bare and the grass was a sickly green, the sky gray and heavy with clouds. He raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed. “I grew up in the city, you know. Had my first subway pass when I was five. Never lived in the country like this. There’s just so much space out here, so much freedom.”

All he could think about was the tracker on his ankle, phantom shackles on his wrists, Nelson’s hands around his hips.

“Peter told me that you found out about the money.” He stiffened. “I loved the old house,” Elizabeth whispered, setting the swing into motion with a gentle push. “But when you—left—” she paused to search for words and Neal tried to catch his breath, remind himself it was okay to breathe. “It was so empty.” She swallowed, gave another push. “So empty.

“I’m not trying to guilt you into staying,” she called after him when he stood up to go inside, because the hollow places inside of him were echoing ( _the places in his heart and mind and life that the Burkes had filled, that Peter had filled, that had stood abandoned for so long_ ). “I’m just saying that we’re really glad you’re here. We want you to be here.”

Francois had dreamed him a dozen different futures. Fantastic careers and spectacular affairs, each one more ridiculous than the last.

When Neal had been in prison any future had seemed ridiculous.

On Sunday he went back to the Home Depot and bought some cheaper paint.

*

Two weeks later Brad Knot bought him a donut.

Brad had a routine. He came in to work at 8:30 with his own coffee and a donut, finished the coffee around 9, and had his donut at around 10:30 with another cup of coffee from the break room. He’d spend about ten minutes complaining about how bad it tasted and then get back to work.

That was his normal routine. He did it every day until Tuesday when, for no reason that Neal could discern, he brought in two donuts instead of one.

Neal stared at the circular bit of dough on his desk, on the center of a napkin in front of his keyboard, and looked at Brad.

Brad was trying to whistle nonchalantly.

Brad was not good at whistling.

Neal pushed it to the side of his desk and got to work. No one said anything to him about it. Brad just went about his day; shifting in his seat, getting coffee, gossiping with Diana. One of the secretaries was pregnant and Brad was convinced that Hughes was the father.

At eleven, Brad went to the bathroom and Diana scooted her chair over to Neal’s desk. "If you don’t want to eat the donut—or the metaphor that the donut represents—you’d best just give it back to him. Okay? Before he strains something pretending that he doesn’t care."

 _Metaphor_? he wrote on a post-it.

"He’s flirting," she said. "Badly, but, still." She waited a minute. "Okay?"

Neal nodded. And looked at Peter, who was occupied in his office, and then at the door, waiting for Brad to come back in.

He was kind of hungry. And he didn’t like donuts very much, but.

 _Brad was flirting with him?_

It was stupid and dangerous and hopeless and, just, stupid. But—Brad was really bad at whistling. And Diana and Peter would protect him, if he got in over his head. He was back in a world where weakness didn’t translate into consent, back in a world where consent _mattered_ , and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t forget that when Brad stood too close to him or touched his arm or held his hand.

He needed to find out. No—he _wanted_ to find out. The bruises from prison had long since faded, and Neal missed...not the pain, not the ache, but the sensation. He missed being touched. Peter’s hand on his shoulder was a lot, it was _enough_ , but maybe—he wanted more. When he jerked off, he’d like to have something to imagine that didn’t involve the rough friction of overly-starched sheets against his skin and the sound of the inmates in the other cells offering commentary.

At some point he was going to have to take a chance.

He broke a piece of the donut off and ate it. It was too sugary, the sprinkles made a mess of his desk, and he was pretty sure some of it was smeared on his chin.

Brad grinned like a madman the rest of the day.

*

The next morning, there was another donut. This one was filled with some sort of custard. The day after that there was a plain glaze, then a chocolate glaze, then a lemon-filled one and a bearclaw. On the morning of the bearclaw, at around ten, Brad went for coffee. He paused by Neal’s desk on the way. "You want some coffee?" Neal shook his head. "Tea?" Another no. "Do you even like donuts?"

Neal looked at his donut, untouched except for the one missing bite. He shook his head.

"Right. Uh—do you want me to stop?"

Neal licked his lips. They tasted sweet. He shook his head again.

The next morning, instead of a donut, Brad brought him a scone.

*

The woman at the bakery reminded Brad of his mother. Only worse, because he didn’t talk to his mother about his dating life, and he’d made the mistake of telling Marie why he’d started buying two donuts instead of one. Every morning she needled him for updates, teasing him for being shy.

He wasn’t being shy, he was just...biding his time.

When he ran out of different kinds of scones to try and Marie started threatening to lace his baked goods with Viagra, he figured he should man up and actually, y’know, talk to Neal.

"I’d like to go out with you," he announced to Neal as they stood in front of the vending machine. Neal bent over and picked up the pack of gum he’d just bought. Brad inserted his coins and made his selection in silence. He pulled out his roll of Lifesavers, opened it, and gave the first two—both green, which he hated—to Neal (who inexplicably _liked_ them). "What do you think?"

Neal put the gum in his pocket and rolled the Lifesavers around in his palm.

He nodded.

*

Brad had been scared of Peter even before his first day in New York. Horror stories about Peter Burke’s temper, his impatience, his demand for perfection, had haunted the halls of Quantico like a cautionary tale to scare green agents with. His first month in the White Collar division had pretty much supported all of the rumors. Peter had been short-tempered, explosive, and solitary. When Burke got Caffrey back, though—even though there was now a new tension in the air, even though everyone walked around the office aware that there was a sore spot that they were all perilously close to hitting—Peter was happier. A better man to work for.

However, when Peter Burke summoned him into his office and then sat behind his desk glaring at him for nearly a minute without saying anything, all of Brad’s initial terror came back to him as if it had never left.

"I am so sorry," he said when he could no longer stand the wait. "For whatever it is that I’ve done. Or not done. Or done poorly."

"Shut it," Peter barked. Brad shut it. Peter walked around his desk and closed the shades that Hughes had installed in all of the offices the year before. Brad wondered if maybe he should start screaming for help. "So. You and Neal." It had been a statement, not a question, but Brad nodded anyway. "What are your intentions?"

Brad bit off an involuntary laugh when Peter glared at him. "I plan on taking him out for dinner. Sir." Peter waited. "And, um. Bringing him back home early?"

“Don’t get smart with me, Knot.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Am I—am I breaking any rules? With his new position in the department, I didn’t think I was crossing any lines.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“Neal is—you should know that he’s—he’s not okay," Peter said, in the understatement of the century. “So if you’re just fooling around, or looking for a good time, then—”

Brad knew that most of the time he came across as a bit of a goofball. He was a six foot six former linebacker, he cultivated his air of _I-am-not-a-threat_ very deliberately, but sometimes—times like this—he recognized and regretted that it cost him credibility. "Agent Burke," he interrupted, "no offense, but I’m not blind. I know that the man’s hurting."

"Then why the hell are you doing this?"

"Asking him out to dinner?" Peter nodded. "Well. Just because he’s hurting doesn’t mean he doesn’t like Italian food." Peter started to speak up but Brad cut him off. “Caffrey is an adult. And he doesn’t need you to protect him. He’s smart, and artistic, and I like him. He eavesdrops when me and Diana gossip and he puts too much sugar in his coffee even though he hates sweet pastries, and I think he’s brilliant. I’d like to get to know him better.

"My sister lived with an abusive partner for seven years," he continued, when it became clear that his answers were insufficient to allay Burke’s fears. She’d kept it a secret for six and insisted it _just wasn’t that bad_ for the seventh. When she’d landed in the hospital with her arm broken in four places, the police had stepped in and made it their problem. She was doing better, now. Physically and mentally. But it had been a long, hard, painful journey. "I’m not saying that I won’t screw it up," he said, because it was obvious that Neal was an emotional minefield, "but I know how to be careful. I _will_ be careful."

They sat in silence for another minute.

Brad felt like he was being weighed. Judged. He tried not to show how nervous he was. How much Peter’s opinion of him mattered. How much he really wanted to take Neal out to dinner and see if he could get the man to dance.

"Don’t take him to Italian," Peter said finally, reopening the curtains and returning to his desk. "Indian, maybe. Thai if you’re feeling adventurous."

"He doesn’t like Italian?"

"No," Peter answered. "It’s just a goddamn cliché. Now get back to work."

Brad got out of Burke’s office as quickly as he could, went back to his desk, and started Googling Thai restaurants.

*

Brad bought a new suit. A new suit that he paired with an old tie and freshly-shined shoes, hopefully covered with enough polish to hide the scuff marks. The tailor had promised him that the suit looked good on him, but it felt tight. Made him feel fidgety. Neal seemed to like it, though, given the wide eyes and slow smile that met him at the Burkes’ door.

“Thanks,” he said, grinning at Neal’s dumbstruck face. He’d have to send his tailor a muffin basket. “You look—uh.” Neal’s shirt was unbuttoned over a white tank top, and he didn’t have socks on. “Am I early?”

Neal rolled his eyes and grabbed Brad’s wrist to pull him into the house. Peter was standing at the bottom of the staircase, a suit jacket in his hands, a glare on his face for Brad. “You have a lovely house,” Brad offered.

Peter narrowed his eyes.

Neal patted him on the shoulder, pointed to the floor to get him to wait, and went into the dining room with Peter to finish getting ready. Elizabeth came down the stairs to give Neal a pair of balled up socks, and then came to stand with Brad in the hallway.

"Sorry. We’ve all got first-date jitters.” Brad nodded awkwardly, because he wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for talking to his boss’s wife, much less his date’s…guardian? Friend? His ‘it’s complicated’? He glanced into the dining room, inadvertently met Peter’s eyes, and flinched when Peter drew his finger across his neck in an unmistakable _I’m going to kill you_ gesture. Neal swatted Peter’s hand away and shot Brad a small smile.

“Peter’s such a cliché," El said with a laugh. "Don’t worry about him, though. He’s all bark and no bite." Brad averted his eyes from Peter before his boss noticed him staring. He was pretty sure the retaliation rules for wives and boyfriends-of-Neal were different, so he didn’t take Elizabeth that seriously. "It’s me you should be worried about," El said with a smile. She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked fondly at Neal and Peter. Peter was whispering something to Neal, furiously quickly, while Neal rolled his eyes and tapped his foot impatiently.

"Pardon?"

She laughed, and a shiver ran down his spine. "Peter might yell, and he’ll probably threaten, and he’ll definitely glare. But he’s your boss, and that’s a boundary that he’s going to respect." She put a hand on Brad’s shoulder and he stared apprehensively at her long fingernails. "You hurt Neal, and I will ruin you. Are we clear?"

He swallowed and fought back the urge to run away. "Yes, ma’am."

She straightened his tie and patted his shoulder. "I’m glad we understand each other." Peter and Neal appeared in the doorway and El greeted them with a smile. "You boys have fun now!"

Neal gave her a kiss on the cheek and led the way out. Brad stammered out _goodbye_ and hustled out the door after him. He paused on the front step to let his heart slow down to a healthier pace. Neal raised a worried eyebrow. "I’m fine," he said. He put his hand on his chest where Elizabeth’s nails had rested. "Mrs. Burke is kind of..."

 _Nice?_ Neal mouthed.

"A terrifying, terrifying woman."

Neal chuckled and grabbed Brad’s elbow. Brad, distracted from his brush with mortality by the press of Neal against his side, let himself be pulled to the car. He was going to do his best to get this right. For himself, and for Neal, and because he was pretty sure that Elizabeth could dispose of his body with no one the wiser.

*

The first date was…awkward. His hands shook too badly for him to write very quickly, so the conversation was especially stilted. He had to force himself to eat. Brad devoured an entire steak and both of their salads. He also paid for the dinner and pulled Neal’s chair out for him and walked him up to the Burkes’ door after the date, but then he didn’t lean in to kiss him.

He left Neal a muffin on his desk next morning. On the napkin he put underneath it he’d scrawled _Second date? Y/N?_ , because he was still in middle school. Neal circled yes, wrote _Dork_ underneath it, and had butterflies in his stomach the rest of the day.

The second date was better. They drove into the city together to go to a new restaurant Diana recommended. The long stretch of silence as they both watched the scenery pass on the long drive by was calming. They played tic-tac-toe on Neal’s notepad as they waited for their food and compared the other diners to animals, and when dessert came Brad stared at Neal’s cheesecake so longingly he worked up the courage to offer Brad a bite. He held his fork up to Brad’s mouth and Brad took it slowly, staring at Neal the entire time. Some crumbs got caught in his moustache and Neal brushed them away with his thumb. On the drive back he wanted to hold Brad’s hand.

After the third date (burgers at a Fifties diner) Brad walked him up to his door and grabbed Neal’s hand before he could reach for the doorknob. "I really want to kiss you," Brad said, looking at Neal’s lips. "Is that okay?"

 _It’s okay to want to_ , Neal thought, trying to fight down the surprise at his instinctive desire to say _yes_.

He leaned forward.

Brad’s moustache was bristly. Uncomfortable. It reminded him of Nelson, the way his beard had left irritated red patches on Neal’s skin. Brad’s breath smelled like barbeque sauce. They both probably did.

Brad had told him the week before that he thought his moustache made him look like a cop, like an authority figure, tough and confident. It quivered against Neal’s upper lip.

 _It’s okay_ , Neal’s body answered, when he kissed Brad for the first time. Slow and careful. Relearning how to lean forward, relearning how to set the tone and take the first step. Letting himself want and encouraging himself to take.

It was absurdly chaste. Closed lips pressed against closed lips. _Gentle_. He kissed Brad’s lips and then his moustache and then his chin, the dimple right in the center.

"Thank you," Brad said. And Neal raised an eyebrow and Brad blushed and when Brad put a hesitant hand on Neal’s neck, Neal learned that he could be guided closer, that he wanted to kiss again, that the brush of Brad’s moustache brought back memories, but none so bad that they couldn’t be chased away by the tilt of Brad’s head and the careful breaths he drew around Neal’s lips.


	3. Chapter 3

Neal wanted his words back. Wanted _no_ and _come closer_ , wanted _thank you_ and _I am_.

He wanted his voice, even though he could barely recall what it sounded like. The memory of it echoed down the silent years to him like a bad outgoing message, tinny and distorted, a stranger’s voice saying _hello you’ve reached Neal Caffrey_.

He was starting to taste them again. The words. Starting to feel them surface inside of him. Elizabeth said _good morning_ and he held his coffee and his reply on his tongue, lukewarm Italian roast and _good morning to you, too_ , savoring them both, relearning the taste of them.

He wanted his words and his voice and his—not his old life back, not the life he’d had before, but—well. His life or something like it.

And when he needed the words the most, needed _no_ and _Neal Caffrey_ and _Peter, Peter where are you?_ , they did not magically surface like a phoenix from the ashes, desperation did not draw them closer; he and his silence were left alone.

*

It was a Matisse, shockingly—a real one, despite all of the evidence to the contrary: the break-in, the disabled security system, the scuffs on the floor underneath the painting. There was even a fresh scrape on the wall, almost hidden by the frame. Someone had worked very hard to make it look like this painting had been stolen and replaced by a forgery.

Hell, maybe it _was_ a fake... Neal leaned in closer to triple-check the scent of the canvas, the ridges of paint, the age discoloration. It was real; real and beautiful. The room was quiet, the building secure. The rest of the White Collar squad was searching the house for clues. He let himself relax and enjoy the painting.

“Who the fuck are you?”

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Strong fingers dug into his flesh as the man behind him spun him around. He saw dark blue: a uniform, gun on the belt, scrapes on the nightstick ( _he’s used it before_ ). Neal’s mind stalled and his body went on autopilot. He dropped his gaze to the floor and kept his mouth shut. Self-preservation and shame. He stumbled when the cop shook his shoulder.

“You got any ID? How the fuck did you get in here? This is a closed crime scene, you—” The cop pulled him farther away from the painting, into the center of the room. “Why were you looking at that picture?”

He did—he might—he should have ID, ID in his wallet in his pocket or maybe his jacket or had he brought a satchel today, maybe he’d taken the FBI credentials out and put them in his shirtfront pocket—

He couldn’t get his body to work. Couldn’t lift his hand from his sides or his eyes from the cop’s scuffed shoes, couldn’t provide a defense or turn and run.

 _People aren’t supposed to touch me,_ he wanted to say, as the cop finally let go of his shoulder. People weren’t supposed to touch him or yell at him or walk up behind him, Brad and Peter and Diana and Elizabeth took care of that, took care of him, there were new _rules_ , there had to be—

Then handcuffs.

He heard them before he saw them. The cop retrieving them from his belt and unsnapping them too quickly, the metal grated against itself. He heard the cuffs jangling and then there was a hand around his wrist, pulling his arm forward, moving him like a mannequin, fastening—cold metal. Cold grey metal clicking into place. One wrist secured. The cop reached for Neal’s other hand.

He couldn’t do this again. He just—he couldn’t. Sickness spread through every fiber in his body, nausea like a plea _you will not survive this again_.

So Neal fought.

He was losing almost before he started, one arm twisted in the cop’s grasp, the other pinwheeling desperately in an attempt to push himself away. He fought with more terror than skill, bile building in his throat, fighting memories more than he was fighting this man ( _this man who was just doing his job, not the man who haunted one-too-many of Neal’s nightmares_ ).

The cop was yelling and Neal was trying to. Trying to scream or cry or laugh, laugh because he could taste blood but not _help me_. All that came out were hoarse moans, as if all of the air had already escaped him, as if his body had learned more intimately than his brain that no help would be coming.

A fist made contact with his cheek. He spit blood and bit his cheek again when the cop kicked his legs out from underneath him. He was on the ground, sprawled on his front, and then he—the cop—he was—

He pinned Neal’s body down and Neal lost it. He bucked and twisted and bit, kicked the floor and the cop and the backs of his own thighs, writhed and panicked and finally, finally something inside of him shook apart.

He screamed.

He was fighting for his life, blood and strangled words; for the first time in years he was fighting back.

He didn’t see Brad coming, but he felt him. Felt Brad slam into the cop like a cannonball, tackling him off of Neal, leaving Neal sprawled on the floor gasping for breath and digging his fingernails into the hardwood, trying to claw his way out of the room. Peter was there seconds later. He touched Neal’s shoulder and tried to pull him up.

He flinched. Recoiled. Moved away from Peter and his big hands and his black leather gun holster, his shined black leather shoes, the scent of his deodorant. He crouched on the floor and breathed through his nose and tried not to vomit.

“Calm down,” Peter whispered. “We’ve got you. Be quiet,” he said, because Neal was crying more than he was breathing. He choked on the irony and the taste of blood. “I’ve got you,” Peter said, holstering his gun and kneeling on the ground at Neal’s side, holding his open palms in front of him. “I’ve got you.”

Neal could hear Brad yelling. And there were hard thumps, familiar sounds: a body being slammed against a wall.

“You’re going _down_ , you motherfucking incompetent piece of _shit_. What the fuck were you thinking, assaulting an FBI agent? No, don’t try to get up, fuckwit, you just stay _right_ fucking _there_.”

Neal blocked it out and pushed himself onto his knees. The skin underneath his fingernails was bleeding. He had cuts inside his mouth, his lower lip was already swelling, and the tenderness near his eye would develop into a spectacular black eye. He was also shaking. “Diana—” Peter was moving away from him and Diana was replacing him. She had Neal’s notebook and her gun was holstered, Neal let her kneel at his side, her knee bumping against his calf.

He could hear Peter on his phone. He was talking in a low, furious voice to someone—Hughes?—on the other end of the line. He and Brad were crowding the cop against the wall. Every time the cop tried to explain himself, Brad slammed him back against the wall. Neal could appreciate Brad’s urge to defend his territory but watching the cop’s body shudder every time he hit the drywall was making Neal’s stomach roil. When he tried to sit up Diana was there, murmuring comforting words to him ( _words he’d heard her use with so many victims before him_ ). Diana handed him her notepad and a pen.

“Are you okay?”

 _I didn’t have my ID_ , he wrote, his letters stuttering across the page. _It’s not his fault._

“Peter’d arrest somebody for giving you so much as a dirty look, Neal, you think he’s going to let this guy go with a slap on the wrist?”

 _He was just doing his job,_ Neal replied, breathing deeply, reclaiming each shaking limb in turn.

Diana’s eyes softened. “Hughes will know that. And whoever this guy’s superior is will know that. Don’t worry.” She shifted her body so that he wouldn’t have to see Brad leading the cop out of the room in his own handcuffs. He could still feel them around his wrists; cold and empty phantom pains. “You did good,” she said, offering him a hand up. “You can take care of yourself, Caffrey. But it’s okay to let us help you every once in a while.”

He stumbled under the weight of her words. Leaned against the wall, looking at the Matisse—real, it was, it was real—while her words sank into him.

He had. He had taken care of himself. Had fought, had screamed, had bought himself time.

He’d given up fighting back before he’d lost his voice. Maybe he was getting it all back, just—in reverse order. Freedom, voice, strength. What would he get back next, he wondered, as he followed Diana to Peter’s side. What more could he possibly want?

*

Peter gave him the next day off from work and Neal spent it at home on Elizabeth’s computer. Dressed in a pair of Peter’s sweatpants and one of Elizabeth’s baggy Stanford hoodies, Satch sitting on his feet, curled up on the couch in the living room. He was perfectly aware of how pitiful he looked. Elizabeth had made him hot chocolate with breakfast instead of coffee, and Peter had actually tucked a blanket in around his feet before leaving for work.

Peter had asked him, in the beginning, what was wrong with him. If it was physical or mental or likely to go away. Francois had asked, too, Francois and Hector and Nelson, the warden and the nurses, _why won’t you say anything, what’s wrong, scream real pretty for me, bitch_. Neal hadn’t had any answers for them. He was looking for them now.

WebMD was less than helpful. He hadn’t lost his voice because of strep, he wasn’t autistic, he wasn’t a child. He found something that almost seemed right, _selective mutism,_ but it didn’t quite fit because none of the articles or discussion boards addressed the way his silence had begun as a shield and then morphed into a tower from which he could not escape, none of the lists of symptoms described the way that he’d lost so many things before his words. They were simply the last item in a litany of things he’d lost, the first and only item on the list of things he’d taken.

And now his words were coming back to him in waves of want, pressing against the roof of his mouth and the back of his teeth, urges that started in his stomach but somehow missed his vocal cords on their way to his lips.

He could not fight this on his own. So he made himself lunch, went on a run with Satchmo, and looked into his governmental insurance plan for treatment options.

*

They made him go to the hospital for testing. Peter made sure they scheduled everything in one day: the physical examination, the x-rays, the MRIs. Get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Neal found out about the tests two weeks before they were able to get them scheduled. The time between passed in a blur. He knew intellectually that somehow he managed to go to bed and change his clothes and go to work and read files, knew that somehow he’d continued moving forward. When Wednesday morning arrived and Peter parked the Taurus in the hospital parking lot, it didn’t seem like any time had passed; didn’t seem possible that he’d been able to keep himself from running away.

He walked inside under his own power. But when they got inside, the smell hit him; stale air and antiseptic, medicine and the hum of fluorescent lights. He stopped walking and hid his face in Peter’s chest. Concentrated on the beating of Peter’s heart.

“You can do this,” Peter said, tugging him to the side of the waiting room. He needed to tell Peter _don’t leave_ but he could barely get air through his lungs, couldn’t convince his fingers to unfurl from where they were wrapped in the cheap cotton of Peter’s shirt to reach for his notebook and pen. Needed to tell Peter _don’t leave me_ because Peter had to be there. Peter wouldn’t let them tie Neal down, put restraints on his wrists, legs spread wide, small hospital gown rucked up around his stomach. Peter wouldn’t let them use cold metal tools to spread his hole open, wouldn’t let them take turns fucking his ass and his pried open mouth, would make sure they didn’t use icy-hot on their hands when they fisted him.

Neal wanted to run.

He held on to Peter. Held Peter’s hand while Peter filled out his forms for him, held on to Peter’s hand as they were ushered from one room to another, listened to Peter’s calm, quiet voice repeating the questions that the doctors were asking him. He felt like he was in a maze; a dream. Felt like he was floating away and only the anchor of Peter’s hand kept him connected.

Peter had to leave him for the MRI. They stripped Neal of his clothes, his notebook, his pen, and put him into a white machine that shifted every couple of seconds around him, echoing so loudly that he would jump, ruining exposure after exposure. He had to stay still.

He thought of Brad. Thought about maybe baking donuts on his next day off, or maybe muffins, he’d never really baked anything before. He thought of Brad and then about the scars Brad had yet to see.

Mostly he thought about running away.

Peter would let him. Peter would let him run and maybe help cover his tracks. Peter would probably lose his job for it, would lose any chance of getting that promotion to Reese’s position.

He could go to Europe, he thought hours later, as the x-ray technician touched his body to reposition his limbs. He could go to France and stay in a small rustic bed and breakfast and eat baguettes and wait for Francois.

When it finally ended (the nurse ushering them into a small room and handing Peter Neal’s clothing) he grabbed for the trash can and vomited. He hadn’t eaten anything in days so it was just bile, bile and then nothing, just his body convulsing around itself, over and over again.

He didn’t remember how Peter got him home.

*

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Peter said the following morning, sitting on the edge of Neal’s bed, trying to bribe him into drinking a cup of coffee. It was probably full of cream and sugar. Neal could barely stand the smell of it yet. “Nothing physical, that they could find. Except that you’re still underweight. All of your—other—the infections, they’re behaving as they’re supposed to. Just keep taking your medications.”

Neal curled up tighter underneath his blanket. “The next step is to try therapy,” Peter said softly, setting the cup of coffee down on the low dresser by Neal’s bed. Steam was rising from it. “I’ve got some names, and I can figure out who’s covered by our insurance. I just need to know if you have a preference for a man or a woman.”

Neal snaked one hand out from under the covers to grab his notebook. _Woman,_ he wrote, but he pulled the notebook out of Peter’s hands to add another sentence. _Anyone who doesn’t work at the hospital._

“Got it,” Peter said, giving him back his notebook and leaving the coffee behind. “You’ve got the day off. Brad sent muffins, they’re in the kitchen. Feel better,” he said awkwardly, before closing Neal’s door.

 _There’s nothing wrong._ Nothing wrong with his body, his weak slutty body, nothing wrong with the signals it sent out saying _take me_. It was all in his head. In his mind; of his own creation. He didn’t drink the coffee or get out of bed for the rest of the morning.

*

His therapist, Marina, was tall and thin and sallow. She swayed from side to side as she led Neal into her office, walking through hallways that overflowed with boxes. She’d just moved into a small building on the outskirts of town. It smelled like mothballs and cardboard. The walls were all bare but the shelves in her office were already cluttered with books and small figurines.

“Your partner filled me in on a lot of the relevant details,” she said, gesturing with the paperwork that Peter had once again filled in for him. Peter was waiting in the front room, watching everyone like a hawk while pretending to do the NYT crossword puzzle. “And I’ve got your results from the hospital.”

She paused. He waited for her to ask a question.

“The diagnosis they provided at the hospital was selective mutism. I’m hesitant to confirm that, because it’s so rare in adults, but at the moment we don’t have any better labels. I see you have a notebook with you?” He nodded. “All right, then—let’s get started.” Which was easier said than done. The expectation of conversation was unexpectedly intimidating. He had to spend an hour with a woman who he was paying to listen, and he had nothing to say.

 _This is awkward_ , he wrote, after struggling for half a page to answer “What do words feel like?”

She laughed and leaned back in her chair. “This is a first for me, too,” she said. “We’ll have to figure it out together.”

*

"This is the worst idea you’ve ever had," he told his reflection firmly. "Generations of Knots will look back on this moment and wonder: ‘whatever happened to that nice Brad fellow? Such a shame that he died so young. So handsome and young...’"

Neal’s knock on the car window put a stop to his pep talk.

"I’m—I was just—" He smiled ruefully at Neal and opened his door. "I was freaking out a bit." Neal opened his arms and Brad stepped into a hug.

Hugging Neal was better than hugging anyone else he’d ever hugged, because he couldn’t take it for granted. Not a single second of it, not a single square inch of contact. It made him hyper-aware, made him grateful, made him...well. Really, really horny.

The sound of the front door opening put a stop to both that train of thought and the beginning of his erection. "I brought wine," he said quickly. "Three different kinds—what did you make for dinner? Or, wait, never mind, I wouldn’t know what would go well with it anyway—" he pulled the bottles off the passenger seat and showed them to Neal. "Which one should I bring in?"

Neal kissed him and slipped the Shiraz from the crook of his elbow.

It was just dinner at the Burkes. He felt weird, being so nervous. He’d seen Peter not four hours earlier, and after surviving Quantico and semi-professional football and an aborted stint in the army, he shouldn’t be afraid of Peter’s wife. Peter’s wife Elizabeth who had threatened his life and also maybe his unborn children, her nails were really sharp, this was a _horrible_ idea—

"Are you two going to stop necking and come inside, or should I get my shotgun?"

Brad looked from Neal to Peter. "He doesn’t really have a shotgun, does he? Does he? He wouldn’t shoot me with his FBI issue gun, right? Neal—" He trailed his grinning boyfriend into the house like a nervous dog.

Peter shook his hand (a little too firmly, Brad’s knuckles felt creaky afterwards) and Satchmo slobbered on his knee.

"Elizabeth’s in the kitchen,” Peter said with a glare. “I’ll take the wine and go help her finish up."

Peter left them alone in the living room. Brad wanted to kiss Neal, but he was kind of worried that Peter had a spy cam on them. "This was a bad, bad idea.” Neal laughed, his usual breathless laugh that was such a surprise every time he made it.

The dinner had ostensibly been Peter’s idea, and Brad was half-convinced it was an attempt to break them up. But seeing Neal—seeing Neal barefoot and in jeans and a t-shirt, _relaxed_ —he was starting to think maybe it was a gift. The Burkes giving their permission, signaling their approval. Or maybe there was going to be arsenic in his appetizer. It could go either way.

Neal led him to the couch and sat down next to him, running his hands over Brad’s shoulders, digging his thumbs into the tense muscles. Neal helped him out of his suit jacket (he was overdressed, he should have worn a nice sweater, his button-down and tie would look funny without the jacket...) and hesitantly kissed the side of his neck.

"You’re in a good mood," Brad murmured, tilting his head to the side and wrapping an arm around Neal’s waist. Neal hummed and leaned closer, kissing the collar of Brad’s shirt and the sensitive skin below his ear, half-kisses, kisses that made Brad want to strip his shirt off and get Neal’s mouth on more of him.

"They’re going to walk in on us," he cautioned, staring nervously at the doorway. He could hear Peter and Elizabeth faintly, the clink of glasses and plates, the low hum of music playing from a radio. "Oh, fuck it." He twisted sideways on the couch and took Neal’s surprised face between his hands. "It’s good to see you, baby."

Neal didn’t particularly care for the endearments but he’d picked _baby_ out of a line-up of _baby_ , _snookums_ , _honey bear_ , and _sweet cheeks_. Brad liked to make sure Neal had choices. He’d saved the piece of paper he’d written the list on—saved the one-sided transcript of their conversation and the bill from dinner and a matchbook with the name of the restaurant on it. He wasn’t usually such a packrat, but time with Neal was like touching Neal; precious and a privilege, something to be treasured.

He made out with Neal on the Burkes’ couch like a teenager, losing himself in the slight rub of stubble from Neal’s beard and the touch of his lips. When Neal pulled away Brad leaned forward, Neal’s lips his only goal, but he stopped when Neal nodded towards the dining room. Brad pulled himself together with only a second to spare before Elizabeth and Peter carried in the food from the kitchen.

"So good to see you, Mrs. Burke," he said with a big smile, hoping that he didn’t have a visible erection. His pants were loose, he’d tucked himself in carefully—he sighed with relief when they all took their seats.

Dinner was unexpectedly comfortable. Brad and Neal sat on one side of the table, Peter and Elizabeth on the other. Brad became Neal’s default spokesperson, reading aloud whatever comments Neal scrawled down on a mostly-full legal pad. Brad was half in love with Elizabeth by the end of the meal, and even more convinced that Peter Burke was a…a great man. Brad had seen many sides to him before, but this one—family man—was his new favorite. Also, Peter made a _killer_ casserole.

After dinner (and a _fantastic_ blueberry and peach pie), Peter and Elizabeth went to sit on the porch. "That sounds lovely," Brad said, starting to stand up to join them. Neal grabbed his wrist under the table and shook his head. "I’ll just, uh. We’ll clear the table?" Neal smiled and started gathering dishes.

"We don’t want to be on the porch?" he asked after Peter and Elizabeth left, his hands full of the casserole and the water pitcher. He nearly dropped them both when he entered the kitchen and saw Neal leaning against the counter like an ad for sex. Sex or maybe specifically blowjobs, since his hips were thrust forward just the slightest bit, just enough for the line of his cock to press tight against the front of his faded jeans. "No porch," Brad said, his mouth gone dry. "You want to...here?"

It made sense that Neal would make a move now, he realized, when he thought about it for a second. The second he got before Neal took the dishes from his hands and then pressed him up against the counter. They were on Neal’s turf. His territory. Hopefully, he would feel safe here.

"You have a room, right?" Neal nodded and rubbed his erection against Brad’s, a slow dirty slide. "That’s—should we—want to show me? Or we could do it right here, I am always down for kitchen sex, really, just ask anyone—"

Neal kissed him before he could babble his way into an even deeper blush. Kissed him and then sucked on Brad’s curious tongue, sucked on it with a moan that Brad felt all the way down to his dick. Felt the swirl of Neal’s tongue against his and knew how good that would feel against his cock, oh, god, he wanted it there.

Neal wasn’t as down for kitchen sex as Brad was, and they abandoned the dirty dishes and ran up the stairs together. When the door to Neal’s bedroom closed behind them he had an awkward moment of clarity. “Wait, Neal, are you drunk? Is this a bad decision? I can’t tell if I should say yes or no to you—”

Neal grabbed Brad’s head and pulled him forward. Brad let out a startled _oh_ and then slouched into Neal’s grip. He could feel Neal’s breath on his forehead.

And then Neal was kissing him. His eyebrows and his crooked nose, his moustache and the stubble on his cheeks. Brad’s breath caught in his throat and Neal’s lips came to rest on the creased skin between his eyes. Neal let go of his face and reached for his hands.

“God, Neal—”

They had kissed before. Kissed and rolled around a bit on couches and in the car; once during a movie Brad had moved his hand from Neal’s knee to mid-thigh. He’d never had a romantic relationship that had progressed this slowly, but he was almost afraid to touch Neal. Afraid to do it wrong and not be able to do it again.

Now Neal was showing him what to do and it seemed like Brad’s fear was only growing. Neal’s hands shook as he brought Brad’s hands to his shoulders, then slowly pulled them down to rest with his palms spread across Neal’s pecs. Neal gave each of Brad’s eyebrows one last kiss and then pulled back.

Brad stayed hunched forward. He didn’t know what to do. He felt honored, blessed, felt—beloved. He didn’t think he would ever forget the touch of Neal’s lips on the broken cartilage of his nose, Neal’s breath across his closed eyes.

“I want to—I want to touch you, can I—” Neal pressed Brad’s hand harder against his chest. He could feel Neal’s heartbeat. “Okay. Just keep…keep showing me what to do.” Neal’s heart pounded against his hand when Brad kissed him on the lips.

*

He guided Brad to his bed, and pushed his shoulder gently until he sat down. “Ddo you want me to lie down? Or—”

Neal shook his head and stepped back. Reached up and began to unbutton his shirt.

“You don’t have to do this,” Brad said, starting to stand. “You should let me help, at least—”

He pushed Brad’s shoulder again, wishing that he could explain himself, even though he wasn’t quite sure how.

He was laying his cards out on the table. _This is what I have to offer_. This is what Brad would have to put up with and work through and look at.

He finished unbuttoning his shirt and slowly slid it over his shoulders. Inch by inch. He watched Brad watching him. Brad had his hands folded in his lap…maybe hiding an erection? Neal had hardly revealed anything yet—and this was hardly a strip show. When he uncovered his chest, fingers brushing over his nipples, Brad bit his lip.

It was hard to breathe. With the weight of Brad’s regard settling on every exposed inch of him. It was different than when he’d presented himself to Peter. Different than the first time Francois had peeled his jumpsuit back and licked every stretch of his body. Different than the times they’d stripped him in the infirmary and posed him, taking careful pictures of new wounds.

He brought his thumb back up to his nipple and teased it until it was hard. He could see Brad’s Adam’s apple move when he swallowed.

Brad wanted him. Brad was attracted to him.

There was a curve between Neal’s ribs and his hips that wasn't supposed to be there. Hopefully it would seem feminine to Brad, would seem natural and sexy and wouldn't call to mind all of the meals that Neal left uneaten on the plate. After Peter’s rejection, he’d wondered if maybe it was because of how much damage prison had inflicted on his body. He’d gained some weight back since then, but not much; his ribs were less prominent but they were still visible.

“Can I—should I touch you?” Brad asked, breathless, his body nervously shifting on the bed. “Or is this enough? Is this good for you?”

Neal ignored him and dropped his shirt on the floor. Brad reached forward with one hand, but let it fall when Neal didn’t step towards him.

 _Will you still want me,_ Neal thought, almost clinical in his observation of Brad’s reactions, _when you see the rest?_

Because there were so many scars. Brown and white and some still scattered in pink. The ones on his hip were the worst. They’d healed badly. It had been a full week of fighting the infection before Nelson had let him go to the infirmary.

He unbuttoned his slacks, undid the zipper, and stepped out of his pants carefully after they pooled on the floor around his feet. He was wearing silk boxers. He’d dressed for tonight with this in mind. Every time he’d shifted during dinner, his boxers sliding against his skin, he’d thought about Brad’s hands.

“Neal, you’re so beautiful. So sexy. I really want to touch you, babe, can I—”

He eased the waistband of his boxers over the words on his hip. Then pulled them the rest of the way off. He took his socks off as he slid the boxers over his feet, and then stood. Staring at Brad staring at him. Curious. Naked.

Brad slid off the bed and onto his knees. Awkwardly, his bad knee making it an ordeal. Neal wanted to step forward to make Brad’s journey shorter but he couldn’t move.

“I want to make you feel good,” Brad said, looking up at Neal. “Show me what you want?”

His mouth went dry. He was swallowing nothing and nerves. But he unclenched his clammy hands and took Brad’s face between his palms. Guided Brad forward, and there was no way that anyone watching—anyone or Neal or Brad or Peter or Nelson—would think that this was anything other than Neal asking for it.

“Do you want—can I suck you?” Neal nodded, nodded and tensed, the muscles from his thighs through his groin and up past his chest clenching.

And then Brad saw his scars and paused, his lips inches away from Neal’s hard cock and the crude words carved into his flesh. Brad kissed them both. Traced the tip of his tongue over the letters and then down the column of his cock, his mustache brushing against the raised patches of skin and the bundle of nerves at his head.

 _Do you know what those words mean_ , Neal wanted to know, _can you still read them, do you think they’re a lie, does it matter?_ He couldn’t ask and he didn’t want to know. Didn’t care within a few minutes because Brad’s hands were big and warm and maybe the only thing holding Neal up.

“I’m going to suck your dick now,” Brad mumbled, dragging his mouth over the crease of Neal’s groin, through his trimmed pubic hair, to the base of his cock. “It’s been a while,” he warned, his words barely audible through the blood pounding in Neal’s ears. “So be patient with me.”

His cock. Brad was sucking his cock. Brad was on his knees ( _cocksucker_ ) sucking Neal’s dick. Because he wanted to, probably, maybe because he thought he had to, what if—what if—

It felt so good. So good that Neal’s knees felt weak. It felt completely unlike the grip of Neal’s own hand in the morning, slick with lotion and moving just a bit too fast, concentrating on the goal instead of the pleasure.

His breath caught in his throat. He put one hand over his mouth and the other on Brad’s shoulder for balance. When Brad took half of Neal’s dick into his mouth he muffled a moan, eyes flickering toward the door even though Elizabeth had promised to keep Peter outside for at least an hour.

Brad pulled off with an obscene pop, suction so strong that Neal’s hips swayed forward with the pressure. Brad licked his lips and Neal’s dick twitched; he was so close to Brad’s tongue.

“I’m hesitant to tell you what to do,” Brad said, his voice hoarse. “But if it’s okay with you, I would really like to hear the noises you make. As long as that’s not crossing any lines for you—and if it is, I’ll just shut up, so—so I’ll just get back to sucking your dick, okay?” Neal pulled Brad’s hair to keep him from doing just that. Then he helped Brad stand up. Left him in the center of the room and went over to the radio. Turned it on, tuned it to NPR—late enough for jazz—and cranked up the volume. He couldn’t bring himself to make noise in silence; not yet.

Then he went over to the bed and sat up against the headboard. When Brad didn’t move Neal hesitantly spread his legs open a little bit—not sure how to say _I just don’t want your knee to get sore, and also I was about to fall over_ without implying _fuck me_.

“Impossibly hot,” Brad said, like he was handing out a decision. He got on the bed so hastily it bumped up against the wall. “Oh, man—they’re going to hear us. _Peter’s_ going to hear us—” his voice got hushed, “— _having relations_. Hey, don’t laugh, you’re not the one who got threatened with a shotgun! Peter’s going to kill me,” he said mournfully, before settling on the bed between Neal’s legs. “You’re really going to miss me after Elizabeth kills me and hides my body,” he said, before taking Neal’s cock back in his mouth.

Neal laughed, laughed and then fisted his hands in the sheets at his side because he wanted to cover his mouth, wanted to hide his enjoyment; his willing participation. Wanted to hide this whole sordid episode from Elizabeth and Peter and maybe from himself. But he didn’t think that this—this sharing, this claiming, this exchange—could take place anywhere else. He and Brad were on Neal’s bed. It smelled like him, smelled familiar, detergent and cologne.

When he had been—when he had needed to—in prison. In prison, he had concentrated on details. The taste of his own blood or the rough fabric of his uniform or the sounds of the other inmates banging on the cell bars and offering commentary. Here all of the details meant _home_.

He closed his eyes and tried to let go. Tried to let the sounds out, to moan and whimper, to respond. His throat hurt. His jaw hurt. Trying to relax was making him so tense.

Brad wasn’t as good at sucking cock as Neal was. He couldn’t take him in very far before his gag reflex kicked in. Occasionally his teeth slipped out from under his lips and he’d pull off to apologize. Brad tipped over on his side when he tried to open his own pants one-handed to jerk off, and Neal’s hands fluttered around Brad’s head and his own thighs and then up to his open mouth like startled butterflies. He laughed, laughed at Brad, laughed at himself. Laughed because the familiar exhalations turned into moans easily under the ministrations of Brad’s tongue, laughed because he was enjoying himself. A blowjob after dinner.

It was—it wasn’t perfect. Brad was sweating and fully clothed, Peter and Elizabeth wouldn’t be outside forever, Neal’s thighs were sore from spreading wide enough to make room for Brad’s broad shoulders.

He was close. He’d been close from the first moment of Brad’s hot mouth surrounding his dick. Brad didn’t have many tricks up his sleeve, but he was enthusiastic, and Neal was hungry for it, desperate for it.

Brad came first. Jerking himself off in his pants, pulling off Neal’s cock to moan his orgasm, his mouth pressed against Neal’s scars, voice and breath hot and loud _god, Neal_ shivering over Neal’s marred skin.

Neal wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked it. His hips jerked when Brad’s unsteady hand joined his a moment later. “Come for me,” Brad said, his eyes half-lidded, resting his head on Neal’s hip. “I want to see you come, baby.”

 _No_ , Neal thought. _This isn’t for you_.

With Brad’s rough fingers twined with his, Brad’s breath teasing over his skin, Neal came. And he shouted.

Not a word or a name or a protest. Just a burst of sound wrung out from his body; his body that was too thin and small and tense to hold the pleasure that Brad was asking from him. He shook and shouted and closed his eyes tightly to try to hold back tears.

It was messy; all over his hand and Brad’s hand and his stomach, probably on the sheets, he’d have to—he’d have to wash them, that was important, he needed to—he needed to think about—

To think about coming, about orgasm, about the afterglow made sweeter and more dangerous by the addition of Brad’s murmured praise and rough, lazy kisses.

He couldn’t stop shaking. Not under the soothing strokes of Brad’s hand, the swipes of tissues cleaning him up, the weight of Brad pressing up against his side.

 _I need,_ he thought, his muscles twitching erratically, _I need—_

Brad’s hand covering the scars on his hip. His fingertips brushing the base of Neal’s softening cock. _Brad_ , he realized, _for now_.

He turned on his side and let Brad hold him. Concentrated on the details of Brad’s over-the-top endearments and the scent of his sweat, the familiar colors of Neal’s blanket pulled up around them both, the constellations drifting past his window.

*

Therapy was awkward and then it was okay and then it was terrifying.

Marina waited until their fourth meeting to talk about prison. They’d already covered Elizabeth and Peter, talked about Brad, she’d had Neal draw what words looked like to him ( _birds, doves, searching for dry land_ ).

“Tell me about it,” she said softly.

 _It wasn’t that bad,_ he wrote carefully. He crossed it out a moment later. _It could have been worse,_ he answered instead, the letters steady on the page although their veracity was uncertain.

 _It happens to a lot of people,_ he wrote. _And they don’t end up like this_.

“Many people do experience abuse,” she said. He dug his fingernails into the leather arms of his chair. “And every experience is unique. Everyone deals with it in their own way. There are some commonalities, of course—you’re not abnormal, and you’re not alone—but you can’t compare your experience or recovery to other people. It’s not a competition for who had it worse. And there’s no deadline for when you’re supposed to get better.

“What happened to you should not have happened to you,” she said softly. In the absence of his response the words echoed and grew. “You were hurt very badly for a very long time.”

 _I know_. He thought the words and tried to say them, tried to push them through, tried to open his mouth and let them fly. But when he failed he didn’t think he could blame it on his disability—his selected mutism—couldn’t claim that as the reason why his words stayed stuck in the nauseous turmoil of his body.

There was a power in her recognition of his trauma; her acknowledgment of its length and severity and impact, her confirmation of its reality.

 _This happened to you_.

The abuse, the rapes, the degradation, the depression borne from the certainty that it would never end. It had happened to him. To Neal Caffrey, FBI consultant, technological virtuoso, person. It had happened to him, and it shouldn’t have.

For the rest of the session she did not encourage him to talk or ask what his words felt like ( _sharks, restless and starving_ ), she did not ask him to draw or speak or write. She just moved to a chair closer to his and held his hand and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

*

 _Brad’s picking me up soon,_ he wrote, walking up behind Elizabeth and showing her the pad.

"Okay. Are you going somewhere close by, or should we plan on picking you up in the city, or...?"

He fiddled with his pen for a while. _I’m taking an overnight bag_.

"Oh." She looked from the sentence to Neal, wishing she could hear his inflection. "You’ve—hmm." She reminded herself that Neal was an adult, a part of the household, not a teenager with a curfew.

He was still so thin. His quietness was still more than just the absence of his voice; she was still so afraid for him. Sometimes, when he came home from work exhausted and pale, both he and Peter drained from a bad day, she would flash back to seeing Neal in prison, before he’d taken them all off the approved visitors list. Neal was a good liar, but he couldn’t con bruises off of his face, hadn’t been able to hide the fact that he just...wasn’t okay. He’d cut them off and she and Peter had spent the next years imagining worst case scenarios. Their imaginations apparently weren’t enough to dream up the nightmare of what had actually happened.

Even now, dressed in one of the suits that fit him almost perfectly, his hair neatly done, she couldn’t help but think _fragile_ when she saw him. What if Brad couldn’t see that? Or maybe—maybe it would be better if he couldn’t.

He picked the pen back up. _Will you tell Peter?_

"Yes," she said reluctantly. Neal stood up and smoothed out his jacket, looking out the window, checking for Brad’s car. "I don’t—" she didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want to stop him, didn’t want to be the one who had to tell Peter. "Just be careful. And if you need us, you call. I’ll come get you any time, no questions asked. Okay?" Neal nodded. "Promise that you’ll call if you need us." He held out his pinky finger and she twined it with hers.

The next half-hour was an awkward dance. Neal avoiding Peter, Elizabeth avoiding Peter, Peter gradually growing suspicious. When Brad finally pulled up outside Neal was out like a shot. Peter saw him picking up a suitcase and she grabbed his arm to keep him from following Neal outside. "He’s staying over with Brad," she said.

Peter spluttered.

"It’s his decision, and we are going to respect it. Right, Peter?" He didn’t say anything. "Honey, he’s been getting so much better, you’ve said so yourself."

"I know that." He sounded hollow. He walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. They could see Brad’s taillights pulling away. "This is going to sound stupid," Peter warned, slowly letting the curtain drop. "But I was still kind of hoping..."

She smiled. Felt her cheeks get heavy with the threat of tears. "Hoping that when he was ready, he’d come to us?"

"It was a silly wish," Peter whispered, wrapping his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. She fit so perfectly against his body. She felt so safe there. She’d wanted Neal to have that; to be a part of it.

"I don’t want him to leave," she admitted. "Peter—what are we going to do when he leaves?"

Peter didn’t have an answer, and she couldn’t bear to ask it again.

*

Brad laughed when Neal came for the second time, groaning and squirming on the mattress, his eyelids squeezed tight, breath coming in long shudders. “Liked that one, huh?” Neal just groaned and pushed Brad away. “I’ll take that as a resounding yes.” He rolled onto his back and waited for Neal to clean himself up, giving him the few minutes of space he liked to have after coming. “Hey,” he whispered, when Neal returned from the bathroom and rested his head on Brad’s chest, his soft hair brushing against Brad’s chin.

“Hey,” Neal breathed, exhausted, sated, safe. _Hey_ , Neal breathed, like it was a word instead of a revelation. Brad froze, going completely stiff, not wanting to wake up in case this was a dream, not wanting to move and break the spell of Neal’s voice hanging in the air. Neal’s voice, deep and hoarse, which Brad had just heard for the first time.

“Feeling chatty today, are we?” he asked, fighting to keep himself from pulling Neal off the bed and swinging him in circles. Maybe he should call Peter and Elizabeth, maybe Neal should call his therapist, maybe—

Neal looked up at him, and Brad waited for it to hit him. Slowly, Neal’s fingers crept up to his mouth. _Hey_. His lips formed the word but no sound came out, not this time; one miracle a night was enough.

“Hay is for horses,” Brad replied, because in time of high emotion he turned into his grandmother.

Neal shook his head.

And the fingers which had been ghosting over his lips like a blind man learning a stranger’s body became white-knuckled, stretching Neal’s mouth into a grotesque mask. “Neal, what are you—”

In a second Neal was out of the bed, both hands over his face, covering his mouth and muffling the sickening moans crawling up out of his throat. Brad didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know why Neal was terrified instead of elated. “You said something,” he shared, reinforcing the wonder of it, glancing at his phone because instead of calling Peter to celebrate he felt like he might need back-up. “It’s okay. It’s great! You’re great, please, just...” Neal pushed himself into the corner of Brad’s room and turned his back to Brad. His shoulders were shaking.

So he waited. He spouted platitudes and promises, put some clothes on and grabbed Neal’s notepad from off the bedside table and slid it across the carpet.

There was fear in every line of Neal’s body. Terror. He’d spoken, and now seemed to be readying himself for a beating.

No one had ever feared Brad like this before. It made him sick to his stomach. He’d thought that Neal had stopped viewing him as a threat, but now that he’d become witness to Neal’s words Neal’s arms were raised to fend him off.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered, sliding off the bed and resting on the floor with his back against the bedside table.

 _I couldn’t_ , Neal scrawled with an uneven hand. _Before this_ , he added in the margin. _I swear_.

“No, I know, I know you weren’t pretending. This is a breakthrough, this is awesome, it’s—” he looked at Neal, who was tracing his fingers over the words he’d written. He’d pressed the pen into the notepad hard enough to leave indentations. “Neal, you don’t—you don’t have to be afraid of this.”

Neal raised an eloquent shoulder and let it fall. He was still naked; the bruises Brad had sucked on his collarbones were dark and precious. “How many years has it been since you last spoke?” Neal held up three fingers. Brad took Neal’s hand in his own, pressed their palms together, curled his fingers over Neal’s. “Come back to bed with me.” His voice was hushed. They were huddled in a dark corner of his room, two children in a make-believe fort, hiding from Neal’s monsters.

*

 _It’s not a choice_ was the first thing he wrote in his next therapy session. Marina looked at it with a frown.

“What isn’t a choice?”

 _Talking_ , he wrote. _I spoke yesterday_.

“Congratulations, Neal! That’s amazing progress. And of course, you’re right; it isn’t a choice. And even if it were, no one would blame you. No one’s going to blame you for being silent up until now and no one’s going to be mad at you for talking.”

He took his notepad back from her and wrote what she’d just said on a piece of paper near the back, tore that page out of the pad, and stuck it in his pocket. He didn’t know where his words were going anymore and he didn’t want to lose these.

She smiled at him when he returned the notebook to its place between them. “So—what did you say?”

 _‘Hey.’_

“Bold choice. I like it. And how did you feel, before you said it?”

... _afterglow_.

She laughed. “So...relaxed, I’m guessing?” He nodded. “Safe, relaxed, and not thinking about having to speak, or trying to force yourself to talk?” He shook his head. “That’s what I figured. So, your homework for next time—yes, I get to give you homework, it’s part of the job description—is to pay attention to those moments. And to try to say something. Whatever you want to say. ‘Hey’ is fine.”

 _Are you telling me to have sex?_ He’d expected her to backtrack, but she did not react as planned.

“Absolutely! It’s good for you. Gets your endorphins flowing. It’s good exercise and good fun. Provided you’re doing it right, and being safe,” she said, tilting her head to look up at Neal through her glasses. “How are things between you and Brad these days?”

He smiled.

*

When he’d spoken to Brad—after they’d gotten past his minor breakdown—they’d celebrated. Brad had opened a bottle of Riesling, bringing the bottle but not any wineglasses into the bedroom. He’d sipped the sweet wine from Neal’s stomach, laughing and licking and eventually taking things further south. Brad had taken him to the bakery on his way to work the next morning, where the woman behind the counter had not-very-surreptitiously given Neal a once-over and Brad a thumbs up.

When he spoke to Peter for the first time— _hey_ , again, in the middle of watching a game on TV while reading through case files—Peter buried his face in his hands and cried. Neal sat next to him on the couch and did nothing. He thought about touching Peter on the shoulder or turning off the TV or texting Elizabeth.

He’d never seen Peter cry before. He was quiet about it. Didn’t make much noise, didn’t move, didn’t reach for tissues or hide his tears.

 _Please_ , Neal thought, wishing that his throat and tongue and lips would work again, _please, stop crying._

Peter looked up at him, his eyes red, his cheeks wet. “I am so happy for you,” he said, each word separate and distinct, the phrase as a whole heavier than it should have been. Neal tried to smile, but his lips felt numb.

He reached forward and brushed the last of Peter’s tears away with his fingertips. Peter’s cheek was warm, it moved under his touch, sliding into a wide smile.

Brad celebrated and Peter cried and Neal—Neal held on to each word, each sound that passed his lips. Each syllable a sign, proof that he was getting better. One more road sign pointing the way to his freedom.


	4. Chapter 4

He did not get words back the way he had them before.

They felt clumsy in his mouth, two-dimensional, bland.

Elizabeth understood better than Peter that being able to say _hello_ didn’t mean what it used to. In the mornings, his first words were always to Elizabeth. Every morning they came out like a test.

He said _good morning_ and meant _I could not sleep last night, the moon shone too brightly through my window and the chill found me early in the morning_. She listened to his words but also noticed the circles under his eyes and the color palette of his clothing and the hesitancy in his hands when he reached for the coffee. His words were hammers instead of lock picks, and Elizabeth understood that.

He said _good morning_ and _please_ and _thank you_ and _Peter, if you don’t change the radio station I’ll strangle you_ but he didn’t say _I’m leaving_. Didn’t say it or write it, not to Brad or Marina or Elizabeth or Peter.

He texted it to Moz. _If I want to leave, can you get me out?_

The answer was swift, capitalized, and certain. _Yes_.

*

Diana and Christy made a beautiful couple. They looked as happy in front of the rabbi as they did in miniature, perched in plastic atop the cake they’d ordered from The Greatest Cake. Both of them in white; Diana’s train trailing down the aisle, Christy’s suit crisp and fitted. Both of them staring into each other’s eyes and smiling so hard that they missed what the rabbi was saying to them.

“They’re so beautiful," Elizabeth whispered, her head on Neal’s shoulder, her hand wrapped around his wrist. He shifted his face, his cheek pressed against the soft crown of her hair.

They were. They were fairytale perfect and pretty. Peter stood as a witness for their union, in a ceremony rearranged to suit two women with no living parents. Peter stood as a witness and friend and family for them both.

After the ceremony came to a close ( _shattering a glass, shards and a new beginning_ ), Elizabeth left Neal’s side to supervise the dinner service and the set-up of the band. “There’s going to be dancing," Brad murmured into his ear as they navigated their way out of their pew. “If you dance with me, Diana owes me twenty bucks."

“Maybe," Neal answered, watching the edge of Diana’s train tangle around her feet as Christy dipped her in a silly kiss, watched the newlyweds straighten it back out together.

The dinner was salmon and salad and delicious; the wine free and plentiful. By the time the dessert plates were cleared he was pleasantly full and gently drunk, Brad sober and solid at his side, his arm resting on the back of Neal’s chair, laugh regularly ringing out across their table.

“Dance with me?" Neal emptied his glass of wine and looked up at the dance floor. It was mostly empty. The lights had just been dimmed, the band only on their third song. The first dance had been lovely, Diana and Christy showing off all the skills that an eight-week ballroom course could get them. He took Brad’s hand and pulled him up to his feet. Brad stumbled, even though Neal was the one with most of a bottle of wine in him. “Didn’t think you’d say yes,” Brad admitted.

Neal shrugged. When they got to the dance floor they stood and stared at each other. “Is it sexist if I want to lead?” Brad asked.

“Probably,” Neal answered with a smile, stepping easily into the frame of Brad’s arms and resting his head on Brad’s shoulder.

Late in the night, when most of the guests had left and Christy and Diana were nearly asleep at the head table, Neal danced with Peter. El bullied them into it; pulling them both out onto the floor and leaving them there together. Peter had put up a token protest but then gestured at Neal to step forward. It was a Viennese waltz and Peter’s frame was perfect. Neal was pressed right up against him.

It wasn’t that everything changed, when he could feel Peter’s hip against his hip and Peter’s chest against his chest and Peter’s breath against his neck, it was that something finally became clear to him. Something that felt ancient and familiar and deep inside of him, like a path carved into stone over centuries by the smallest trickle of water.

 _Peter._

And maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the alcohol in his veins that made him feel so heavy and tired and _finished_. But it wasn’t until he danced with Peter that he realized how badly he needed to rest.

It was Peter’s rented suit and Peter’s polished shoes and Peter’s expensive cologne, but mostly—mostly, it was the heat of Peter’s chest through the fabric of his jacket. The humid heat of his sweat and body, the reassuring solidity of his chest, the confidence in the strength of his arms. It was resting his head and feeling the muscles in Peter’s shoulder shift to support Neal’s weight. It was closing his eyes and trusting Peter to lead him.

They didn’t talk. Peter hummed along with the music at first but slowly quieted. The song was slow and mostly they just swayed, their feet barely leaving the floor. Their shoes bumped against each other every so often.

Neal had danced with Brad.

But not like this.

He wondered if he looked as happy as Diana had looked in Christy’s arms. This wasn’t—it couldn’t—he had Brad. Peter had already said no to him. Elizabeth was sitting a few tables away, and it—it was—it was perfect, in a way his life hadn’t been for years. Slow dancing with Peter at someone else’s wedding. Being held.

The song ended but Peter didn’t let go until the strains of the next song started up. “Right,” Peter said, stepping back. “I’ll—I’ll just—I’m going to get some fresh air.” Peter left and Elizabeth followed and Neal walked back to Brad.

Neal had spent the whole night at Brad’s side. Pressed against his side, tucked under his arm, shielded from errant touches or handsy guests. When he slipped back into his chair, Brad leaned over and whispered “Well, that was different," into his ear, and for the first time that night he felt afraid.

He drank more. Glasses of wine and champagne because the servers were bored and Elizabeth and Peter had gone home and Brad looked sad and wouldn’t talk to him.

They left when the band began to pack up. Brad’s arm over Neal’s shoulder, Neal’s arm around Brad’s waist. Neal wondered if Brad felt like he was in the wrong couple, too.

Brad didn’t turn on the lights in the apartment when they got back. Neal stumbled into the kitchen and poured them both glasses of water, and when he brought them into the bedroom Brad was waiting, his tuxedo jacket draped over an armchair, his white shirt glowing from the streetlamp shining through the window.

“I have to ask you a question,” Brad said quietly, sitting down on the corner of the bed. The mattress was dipping under his weight, the tightly-tucked sheet pulling taut. “And I need for you to be honest with me.” Neal felt uncomfortable under the pressure of even Brad’s indirect focus. “Are you in love with Peter?”

He couldn’t answer. Brad’s words hurt, the question was terrifying, and so he kept his answer wrapped around him like a shield.

“Neal," Brad whispered, big hands folded loosely in his lap. “Please. Answer me."

And so he nodded.

Brad laughed; hollow, quiet. Neal flinched so badly he spilled water on his suit jacket. “I don’t know why I’m surprised," Brad said, standing up and pacing. He was between Neal and the door. And he said he wasn’t surprised and he didn’t sound angry but he was still blocking the exit. “I noticed it the first day I fucking met you, I shouldn’t—"

Neal backed up against the wall and began to inch his way towards the door.

“ _Goddamnit_ , Neal.” He dropped the glasses of water and closed his eyes. He’d been through this before. Leaving one protector for another. Paying for his betrayal. “I will not hurt you," Brad whispered, stepping away from Neal and sitting back down on the bed. ”I don’t know if you went into this knowing that, or if it just happened—”

”It just happened,” Neal interrupted. His ankles were soaked with cold water and his hands were shaking and his words felt thin and transparent.

“Oh,” Brad said with a painful half-laugh. ”That, uh—that doesn’t actually make me feel any better, as it happens.” Neal took a step back, as if he could take his words back with him. ”I don’t blame you,” Brad whispered. ”I really don’t.”

Neal blamed himself. He could blame himself for both of them. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but Brad waved his apology away.

“I’m going to ask you something," Brad said, fumbling with his cufflinks. “And I might be overstepping my bounds or breaking a break-up rule that I don’t know about or just being an asshole, but—" Neal didn’t know what Brad was going to ask but he was prepared to give him just about anything. “Will you spend the night with me? Not for sex, although I wouldn’t say no, I just, uh—" he cleared his throat and gave up on the cufflink he still hadn’t gotten unfastened and Neal realized that Brad was crying. “I don’t think I want to be alone right now."

*

He spent the night with Brad. Curled up around him in Brad’s bed, the cheap mattress bending underneath their combined weight, tipping them both towards the center. He felt strong and cruel and useless, holding Brad as he cried and eventually, thankfully, slept. He held Brad and remembered every second of dancing with Peter. Rebuilt the sensation of Peter’s warm, strong chest, one heartbeat at a time.

He was in love with Peter.

*

Brad drove him home in the morning. They were both still dressed in their tuxedos. Neal’s shoes were damp and his socks cold and wet. Halfway to the Burkes’ Brad held out his hand and Neal grasped it, holding on too tightly, trying not to feel like he had on his first morning out of prison, uncertain and afraid.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as they pulled up in the Burkes’ drive, the gravel crunching underneath Brad’s tires.

“Don’t be,” Brad said with a strained smile, his fingers tightening around Neal’s. “You—this was—you were very kind to me.”

“…I was?”

Brad laughed. “You were. And if you don’t leave soon I think I’ll convince myself that if things don’t work between you and Peter that you should come back to me.” He smiled wryly. “And I don’t—I deserve to be more than second place.”

Neal stared at the Burkes’ front door. “Peter already has Elizabeth,” he whispered.

“Well, maybe Peter’s the kind of lucky guy who gets two first places.” Brad let go of his hand. “Now you should—you need to go.”

“Take care of yourself,” Neal said, opening the door and letting in a warm breeze. “Thank you.”

*

He loved Peter, but he knew he could not trust Peter to keep him safe. The debt between them was all on Neal’s side. There was no trade he could offer that Peter would accept, no way to tip the balance in his favor. The last time he’d trusted Peter just because of _who he was_ —he hoped he’d live to outgrow the nightmares that that trust had resulted in.

He was done with Brad but couldn’t begin with Peter, and Elizabeth understood him best of all, but she wouldn’t understand his desire for Peter.

When Moz had come the first time and offered him a way out, Neal hadn’t been ready. He thought that maybe, now, he was ready to run.

*

As spring approached, he made his preparations. The house was nearing completion: the walls were painted and the basement was furnished. One of the rooms on the third floor had been converted into a library and art studio, there was a pool table in the basement, the roof on the garage had been patched. The driveway was still unpaved but that chore was not enough to hold him.

One day when he was sitting on the back porch Peter came out and joined him. “They’ll be planting the fields, soon.” Neal nodded. “Do you think you’ll be around to see it?”

There was a long empty stretch of time before he shook his head. _No._

“Trust us,” Peter whispered. “Trust us to be able to keep you out.”

He wanted to. He wanted to take Peter’s words and hold them to his chest when his lungs tightened and his body froze, he wanted to take his faith in Peter and wrap it around his body like a cloak, a shield—

“I trusted you last time,” is what he had to say, because imperfect armor would serve him better than imaginary shields.

Peter visibly paled. Neal felt bad for making Peter’s face go long and drawn and sad, but he wanted to tell Peter the truth. He didn’t know how to use his new words any other way.

“Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

“Can you give me time?”

“Yes, of course, I can wait—”

“No. I need you to give me time off-anklet.”

“If—if I do,” Peter said, the fog of his breath hanging in the faint chill of the evening air, “if I do, are you going to run?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered. Didn’t know if he would, or _could_ , hell, he didn’t even know if he _wanted_ to. But he did need to know if he had the option. An escape route to his life.

“I can,” Peter said, voice choked and horrible. “But not without making it so that you can’t come back. I can give you a head start,” he said, his head bowed. “But that’s it.”

“I’ll ask Moz.”

The sun was setting when Peter went back inside. Aries was no longer visible in the sky.

*

Moz, it turned out, could not only give him time, but also a villa, a fake identity, and plane tickets ( _actually, a whole plane, provided he wasn’t hyperbolizing_ ). Neal asked for a weekend. Forty-eight hours.

The monitor on his ankle went dark Friday evening. Peter drove him home from work and stood in the hallway while Neal fetched his bag. He hadn’t packed his books or pictures, didn’t take any of his notepads, full or empty. Just a change of clothes, an extra pair of shoes, a photo of the Burke’s and another of Neal and Brad with the happy couple at the wedding.

Peter was standing in the hall when he came back down the stairs. El was at an event that had been scheduled months in advance. She knew what was happening, but hadn’t cancelled. She wanted to think that he was coming back. And if he wasn’t, she didn’t want to be there to say goodbye. Neal had left a letter for her in his dresser. They’d have to go through his things if he didn’t return. She might not want to hear him say goodbye but he still needed to say _thank you_.

He carried his bag to the front door and stood in front of Peter. He didn’t know what to say. _I’m sorry_ rang through his head, a sad empty echo of Peter on his knees before they’d taken Neal away.

Peter pressed his car keys into the palm of Neal’s hand, the metal warm from his sweaty grip, and then folded Neal’s fingers around them. It was sweet, but unnecessary; Neal was not the one who lost things.

“Do what you need to do,” Peter said, squeezing his hand before letting go. “I won’t try to keep you here,” he said softly. “This isn’t like last time. I know—the last time that I tried to run your life for you, it nearly destroyed you. I don’t know what’s best for you. So I will—I’ll support whatever you think is best.” Peter was crying.

Over the past year, Neal had fought to reclaim every part of his body; his eager cock and his fading scars and his sensitive skin, his breath and his strength and his voice. He was in control of every part of the body that stepped forward and kissed Peter Burke on the mouth. He had relearned his body through the guiding touch of Peter’s hands and the nourishment of Elizabeth’s food and the comfort of Brad’s gentle mouth. And his body did not want to leave. The door was open and the world outside was waiting and Peter Burke was kissing him back. He could feel Peter’s chest against his chest, Peter’s heart beating against his, Peter’s lips against his lips.

In the hallway of the Burkes’ new old house, his bags at his feet, the weapons of his words sheathed and silent, Neal decided to stay.

  
 _Feedback is appreciated!_   



End file.
